Sink or Swim
by iackrabbit
Summary: All her life it had felt like a struggle to stay afloat, and she was hell bent on swimming. But when she finds herself completely submerged under water, she doesn't exactly get a choice in the matter. Jamie Gilbert's life was a wreck. A complete and utter catastrophe from beginning till end - How's that for a eulogy?
1. Chapter One, Prologue

Thomas Fell was a stern man, with thin lips permanently settled in a long firm line, his milk-bottle specs falling down his beak-like nose only for a long wrinkled finger to push them back up again. The thick black rimmed glasses magnified his beady eyes, but even that couldn't mask how abnormally small they were in comparison to the rest of his overly generous features. His widows peak was all the more noticeable with his receding hairline, combed back in a desperate attempt to hide his shiny bald patch nearing the crown of his head, wisps of straw-like grey hair growing in tufts, some of were which sprouting from his ears. This long, wiry man was the Principal of Mystic Fall's local elementary school, in fact, it was the only elementary in the entirety of the town, of which he ruled with an iron fist. _The rules, Miss. Gilbert, are set in place for a reason,_ he would say in that monotonous drawl she hated with a passion, those beady eyes peering out at her from beneath those inch-thick lenses.

"Tinkerbell," He began, his eyes flicking to hers for just a moment, long enough for that tedious voice of his to become patronising.

"Jamie." She corrected stubbornly, and if looks could kill she had no doubts that she would have kicked the bucket at any given moment. Her Mom giving her a knowing look that spoke volumes to her. _Behave, Jamie,_ it said, _you're in enough trouble as it is._ She knew that it was true, she really was in for it this time round, and by speaking out loud she had only made matters worse.

Tinkerbell Jamie Gilbert- A dumb name for a tongue-tied idiot, she thought bitterly. On many occasions she couldn't help but wonder as to what the hell her Mom had been thinking that day, Elena and _Tinkerbell,_ a fairy for goodness sakes! It made her blood boil just thinking about the whole damn thing. And it was pointless anyway, because anyone with an ounce of common sense wouldn't dare to call her that to her face. Her name was Jamie Gilbert, a normal name for a normal kid. But it seemed as if Thomas Fell lived to make her life a living hell.

He cleared his throat, and for a moment she hoped that he would choke on whatever it is that had managed to lodge in his esophagus. To her chagrin he, in fact, wasn't suffering from a blockage in his air passage. Instead it almost seemed as if he were pleased with himself, as he sat there smugly in his shiny leather chair with an air of poorly misinformed self-grandiose and a condescending way about him.

"As I was saying-" That was his way of dismissing what she had just said, she knew, despite it being a perfectly valid point. "Your daughter was caught fighting again in the play yard, with a group of older boys might I add."

Thomas Fell was an old-fashioned man, he believed in traditional values and the such, which included the strict gender scripts that divided the sexes right down the middle. In his day and age such tom foolery would never have arised, because girls especially knew their place in society, and in his mind it should stay that way. Boys will be boys, it seems, but for a little girl to scrap around in the mud it was far from _proper_. And Thomas Fell ran his life with the utmost kosher, and by proxy, his school too. It just wouldn't do to have a little scoundrel such as herself run amok, under the illusion that she was a boy, or god forbid, equal to the male species in any way, shape or form.

In other words; he had a ruler stuck so far up his arse that he couldn't help but talk pure and utter shite. And that's all that came out of his mouth, Jamie mused, in fact, it was the only thing proper about him.

"This behaviour simply cannot carry on, Mrs. Gilbert, I won't allow it. Your daughter refuses to cooperate, and if she does not put a stop to her ways then I will have no other option than to force my hand."

She wanted to scream, to lash out and tell the stupid old fool exactly what she thought of him and this goddamn school, but then she saw just how tired her Mom looked at that moment.

There was a small frown etched on Miranda Gilbert's pretty face, a face that was beginning to age. She could have sworn that her Mom hadn't looked so worn down and weary this morning, that she didn't have laugh lines or crow's feet at her eyes. But she did, because Miranda Gilbert wasn't getting any younger, and despite how well she was aging she couldn't hide how drained she felt at that moment. The worry in her eyes betrayed the reassuring smile she had put on, and in that moment Jamie knew that her Mom didn't have a clue what to do with her anymore.

So Jamie sat in silence, listening patiently as the adults talked, because she had done enough damage for one day.

* * *

They walked in silence, her red chuck taylors beating against the pavement as she tried to keep up with her Mother's long strides. Every now and then Jamie would skip, leaping over the cracks in the cement. _Step on a crack break your Mother's back._ Neither of them had said a word since they left the office, and Jamie didn't know wether to be bashful or angry given the circumstances.

Because at this very moment Randall Harrison was stuck in hospital with a broken nose, and it was all her fault.

Randall Harrison was in the fourth grade, a tall, lanky boy whose body had yet to catch up with his growth. He reminded her of a bean stalk, or maybe a lima bean with his stringy arms and legs and watered down features. There was nothing remarkable about the boy, or particularly notable by any standards, everything about him was extremely plain, from his dull brown hair to his walmart-bought clothes, and completely forgettable in every given way. Everything but his increasingly violent temper tantrums, that is. Just last week he had lost a game of baseball to Tyler Lockwood, and apparently that was reason enough to give the kid a bloody nose and a shiner he'd have to carry around for weeks, despite the two year age gap.

So Miranda Gilbert had received a call requesting her presence in Principal Fell's office, on the grounds of her daughter breaking the school's strict terms in the 'code of conduct' with her 'boisterous behaviour', all because she had hit Randall Harrison in the face with a baseball bat. She could still feel the way the bat felt in her hands, the weight of it as she adjusted her grip, how it broke through the air as she took a swing, and the magnificent _thump!_ that followed as it hit Randall square in the face. And she'd be lying if she said she hadn't been satisfied with her work, the sickening _crunch_ that rang out as the bat came into contact with his face. So no, she wasn't sorry for it. If Jamie could, she'd go back, and this time she'd pick an aluminium bat.

Because Randall Harrison gave Tyler a bloody nose, so Jamie _broke_ his.

She sat in the front seat, safely buckled up and waiting for the impending roar of the engine sparking to life. Only, her Mom never reached to put the keys in the ignition, instead she simply stared ahead with a distant look in her eyes that Jamie knew all too well. It wasn't that her Mom was staring at the brick wall the car faced, sitting in stationary with no signs of movement, but rather she wasn't looking at the wall at all. Lost in her own world, with a thoughtful frown on her face that indicated that whatever had her so immobilised was far from pleasant, Jamie knew that it was her who plagued those thoughts. Every other aspect of the Gilbert's family was nothing less than perfect, so it was none other than the unruly black sheep of the family that could possibly elicit such a reaction.

"Mom-" She tried, but it was a futile attempt as she struggled with her own words. With a sigh and only a slight pause, "I'm sorry."

It was the truth, Jamie was sorry. Just not for breaking Randall's nose. She was sorry for being so troublesome, never giving her Mother a moment's peace. Because God knows it couldn't be easy to have a child like Tinkerbell Jamie Gilbert, the local ragamuffin who threw all founder family prospects and ideals to the wind.

"I don't mean to be bad, honest." She said sadly, staring down at her hands as they clenched. Nails bit into clammy skin, and she could feel the sting of crescent-shaped marks as they punctured her palms, droplets of blood rising, sticky and warm.

"I know, Jamie… I know."

That night Jamie was perched on the stairs, staring off into nothing as her parents argued in the next room. Elena and Jeremy had went to bed hours ago, and they had assumed that sometime during those hours Jamie had retreated to her own room. They were wrong, and Jamie sat as still as stone as she had done since she got home, the hours passing by at an alarming pace as he soft _tick tock_ of the clock seemingly went on forever. Voices were muffled by the walls, soaking in the sound of hushed voices and bitter words, and yet Jamie could hear it all crystal clear. Sometimes, when nights like these occurred, she wished that they would just shout at one another, forget all the pretenses and lies they told themselves and finally hash it all out. Because it was her fault that they were fighting, why bother denying it, and by pacifying their emotions, which was supposedly the 'adult' thing to do, they were really just pretending that everything was fine. And if it were such, then they wouldn't need these whispered conversations at the dead of night.

"She hit that boy in the face with a baseball bat- a baseball bat, Grayson!" She cried, and the sound of her heart wrenching sobs seemingly echoing through the barren hallway, where Jamie hung her head down low.

"I know, but maybe she had a reason-"

"A reason? She broke his nose! Our baby broke some poor boy's nose."

All was quiet at that moment, just a moment, and then she heard her Mother sigh.

"Why can't she be more like Elena?"

Jamie winced, as if she had been physically struck. They were twins, but they couldn't be more unalike, and by comparing them in such a way, placing Elena on a pedestal, they were only making the rift between the two girls widen. Tired, and feeling more alone than ever, Jamie finally went to bed, praying that tomorrow would come with the promise of something better. God knows she needed it.

* * *

There were three days left of school, of which Jamie was unable to attend due to suspension. Her Mom had gone to the trouble of banning her from all extracurricular activities and any other clubs she had partaken in for the last few months. No soccer, baseball, cross country, basketball, or anything remotely interesting. And worst of all, no Tyler Lockwood. So Jamie was sat on the doorstep, waiting patiently for summer vacation to come around so that she and Jeremy could play. For the last few hours she had been going over an array of medical books and journals, having already read over half of the contents of her father's library it was a considerably good find. Science was interesting, and she had already indulged in anatomy, astronomy (as a byproduct of astrology), the solar system and space in general, the earth and it's atmosphere, addiction, interdependence and adaption, genetic variation, electricity, inheritance and genetics, evolution, the origin of chemical elements and so much more.

She also had her battered copy of _Perfume:_ the story of a murderer ( _Das Parfum_ ), by Patrick Süskind- Of which she had used to learn what little German she knew _._ Years of use wore her beloved books down, the spine delightfully cracked with the telltale signs of a much loved novel, with her name, along with an array of annotations, neatly printed at the front. She had also brought out her sketchbook, and she enjoyed copying the copiously detailed diagrams of the human figure, writing a few notes on how it worked- because that was a fundamental piece as to how one replicates the human figure _accurately_ in their artwork. Leonardo Da Vinci was a superb example, in the prime of the Renaissance period, undoubtedly Jamie's favourite period for rich artwork and even books. In fact, she owned a book on the work of Vesalius, _De humani corporis fabrica,_ better known as _On the Fabric of the Human Body_. Andreas Vesalius was renown for the foundation that was modern anatomy, and Jamie revelled in the fine art based on human dissection in allegorical poses. Her sketchbook was also filled with studies of the architectural work by Vitruvius, of which stemmed Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man; from Vitruvius' notes.

And that's how she spent her last few days, reading, re-reading, sketching and indulging her curiosity. Staying at home proved to be far more productive than sitting at school all day, though she wouldn't tell her parents that.

Sometime during noon, Mr. Richardson, an elderly neighbour who didn't have a nice word to say to anyone (Mrs. Richardson being the only exception), began mowing his lawn. Jamie watched the man with a crooked back struggle with the power cords, his frail hands too daft and hefty to untangle the thick wires. Without missing a beat, Jamie made her way across the lawn, ignoring the less-than-friendly look she received from old man Richardson. With small hands and nimble fingers she fed the cable through tangles and loops effortlessly, not bothering to say a word. It was like a puzzle in a way, and Jamie loved puzzles, moreover she was _good_ at them. In a few minutes she had successfully sorted the wire into an orderly fashion, and when she looked up from her task she found that Mr. Richardson's eyes had softened just a tad.

"Can I help?" She murmured thoughtfully, tilting her head ever so slightly with a slight smile playing at her lips.

With a gruff nod he thrust a pair of bush trimmers into her hands, motioning towards the bushes impatiently.

Together they spent the afternoon sorting out his garden, she tidied the shrubs and bushes while he mowed the lawn, they then proceeded to caring for Mrs. Richardson's rose garden, her pride and joy, and even planted a few more seeds in the process of weeding. Jamie got a real kick out of the manure, and she couldn't help but wonder if he'd let her 'borrow' some for the… garden. Yeah, the garden, because if you thought about it children were sort of like plants, always growing, and if she could convince Elena that dung would make her grow faster…

When she worded it like that Mr. Richardson almost found himself smiling, god forbid, but he let her take what she wanted nonetheless. He wouldn't admit it, but he quite liked the enigmatic Gilbert and her chaotic ideas.

Mrs. Richardson, upon seeing little Jamie Gilbert helping her husband work in the garden, came out with an icy jug of homemade lemonade. By the time the garden was finished she had somehow convinced Jamie to help her make baked goods; cupcakes, cookies, brownies and macarons. A good selection was boxed and handed to the girl, and with a wink Mrs. Richardson beckoned her out of the house good-naturedly.

"Come back anytime, Jamie, anytime!" She crooned happily, and Jamie found herself taking a liking to the eccentric Mrs. Richardson- " _Call me Ruthie, doll, everyone does."_ \- or rather, Ruthie, whom had a bigger sweet tooth than anyone Jamie had ever met, including her Mom who was a renown sugar fiend. She even liked Mr. Richardson, his snarky comments and rude remarks were amusing to say the least, and he never really said anything negative about Jamie herself, just everyone else in Mystic Falls. He was a man after her own heart, she thought fondly, walking across the yard with a little skip to her step and a bundle of goodies to share.

Miranda Gilbert had repeatedly been struck speechless by her bigger-than-life-itself daughter over the years, but when she waltzed through the backdoor with a box full to the brim with sugary treats, she found herself at a loss for words yet again. Sometimes, she couldn't help but think that maybe there was hope for little Jamie Gilbert yet. And learning that her daughter had been respectful and moreover helpful to the elderly couple next door was nearly enough for her to lift the ban on sports- _almost_. The home baked goods didn't go amiss either.

The next day Jamie helped Mr. Richardson carry his groceries, only for Ruthie to commandeer her for afternoon tea.

"So, dear, why aren't you at school?" Ruthie commented idly, the tray sitting on the coffee table was full to the brim with sweets and sugary tea.

Jamie peered at the old woman bashfully, "I… I broke Randall Harrisons nose with a baseball bat."

"Oh? And why is that?" She asked carelessly, her nose crinkled in distaste, setting her tea on the table and pouring a generous amount of sugar in, taking a small sip, her features smoothing out again.

Jamie watched it all happen in awe. No one, not even her own parents, had bothered to ask her why she did it. No one else had cared enough for the answers. Until now, that is.

"What are you two talking about?" Mr. Richardson muttered, seemingly annoyed, but Jamie knew that wasn't the case. He loved his wife, and no matter how rough around the edges he may seem he had taken a liking to Jamie.

Ruthie, content with her watered down sugar under the pretense of tea, waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, Jamie here was just telling me about the broken nose she gave some boy- oh, what was his name again, Rolan or something like that."

"Randall." Jamie corrected.

Careless as ever, Ruthie simply nodded. "Yes, yes, now I remember."

"Well, what'd you do it for, tyke?" Mr. Richardson asked roughly, leaning forward just a tad as if already enamored by the promise of violence and blood. 'Tyke' was what he had taken to calling her as of yesterday, when his wife stole her away. It turned out that Jamie Gilbert was of the likeable sort, a rare breed, though William Richardson would never say so aloud.

"What makes you so sure that there's a reason?" Jamie asked curiously, but she couldn't help the small spark of hope that had ignited at their words. They hadn't simply assumed, written her off as a lost cause or declared her hopeless like the rest of them. No, the Richardson's were something else entirely.

Ruthie just laughed, "Get on with the story, doll."


	2. Chapter Two, The Voice

I'd be an anchor but I'm scared you'd drown

It's safer on the ground

Why you talk so loud?

Why you talk so?

 _-The 1975, Talk!-_

* * *

"C'mon, Lainey!" Jamie jeered, a lovely smile playing at her lips- the kind that made your eyes light up like only a kid could do. "Kick the damn ball already."

Elena watched her twin as she adjusted her backwards cap, she was really starting to hate that stupid old hat, and she was determined that this time she wasn't going to lose, because you could only lose so many times to your twin before bragging rights kicked in. Not that Jamie would brag, there was no joy in beating someone who couldn't kick a ball to save her life, but Elena didn't know that.

She kicked it as hard as she could, and they both admired the way it soared through the air precariously with something akin to pride. Laughter filled the air, it was childish really, but Jamie was elated by the fact that her sister could finally kick a ball, not one of those wussy taps she had been trying to pass off for the last hour or so.

The ball fell one step at a time. _Thump, thump, thump!_ She could hear it roll along the concrete floor, the faint _thud!_ as it hit something solid, coming to an abrupt halt. Elena wasn't laughing anymore, and her smile dropped hastily as the ball sank further into the darkness.

" _Wh-Oops!"_ Jamie snickered, too amused to be taken seriously but too condescending to be ignored, it had been Elena's fault after all. But she had stood by and watched as the ball sank into the darkness of the basement, forbidden territory by all means, so she supposed she was an accomplice- or rather, no help at all.

Over the course of the last six months Jamie and Tyler had lost a total of three soccer balls, and with the promise of freedom upon the horizon she sure as hell wasn't about to let this one slip through her fingers too. Who knows how long they'd have to wait in order to get a new one, it could be a matter of months - and to a couple of eight year olds that had a way of feeling like years. So Jamie sauntered down the steep steps without a second thought.

She skipped the last couple of stairs, landing with a muted _thump!_ as her mud clad chuck's hit the floor, closely followed by the sound of Elena's scampering footsteps.

Her eyes wandered along the sea of shelves, lined with books, folders and large encyclopedias. There was everything ranging from medical journals to scattered files, independant research and published books; all colour coded, in chronological order rather than alphabetical like the ones in her Father's study at home. The number '12144' was marked on most of them, the unpublished stuff, especially the more recent entries, but it also dated back a good fifty years or so at the very least. She recognised her Father's handwriting, but a lot of the older ones were foreign to her, a few of the more recent ones as well, so she supposed her Dad had taken over a large project that had progressed over a long period of time, and it only made sense that he wasn't working on it alone.

'Augustine' was the title of each report. Jamie assumed that it was a pharmaceutical company, perhaps a scientific research organisation or even a charity project, some sort of funding source at least. For such a large project would surely be costly, and if it was expensive to run then the money had to come from somewhere.

"Jamie, we shouldn't be down here!" Elena whispered nervously, fiddling with the front of her shirt in an anxious manner.

"It's your fault in the first place, Lainey, you're just too chicken to get caught."

When a strange sound emitted from the other side of the door Elena just about jumped out of her skin, reminding Jamie all too much of a skittish kitten as she ran up the stairs, taking them two or three at a time, an impressive feat for someone with such small legs.

Jamie wasn't scared as easily, so when it happened again she listened intently, taking a step or two closer to the door in order to hear better. It was a peculiar buzzing sound, like an electrical charge of sorts, and she noticed that here was light coming from underneath the crack in the door, a manufactured blue glow, artificial in every sense of the word.

By the time the sound had stopped Jamie and the soccer ball were gone, along with the artificial blue light.

The door opened, and Dr. Grayson Gilbert peered out suspiciously, but no one was there.

* * *

Tyler Lockwood wasn't exactly sure when he started to pretend, all he knew was that it didn't work- not really. Because he could play pretend all he wants, but that didn't change the fact that he could still hear his Father shouting, his Mother crying. He could ignore the fact that his coach wanted him to pass the ball more, the teachers that told him he was a pain in the ass and all his stupid friends that didn't even like him, but sometimes he got tired of pretending, and some things were just too loud to ignore.

He dreamed of standing up to his dad, telling him what he really thought of him. It wouldn't end well on his part though. Of consoling his mom, but asking the questions he didn't know the answers too. Like why she was still with his Dad when she obviously wasn't happy, but that wasn't something a child should ask. He could start passing the goddamn ball, but he knew he was better than all the other boys on the team- that's why Randall Harrison had punched him after all. And he could tell the teachers the truth, could tell them just how scared he was, but they didn't care so Tyler wouldn't say anything. And besides, he had Jamie Gilbert.

Many a night Jamie had snuck through the window, slipping into Tyler's room treacherously, enjoying the feel of her rubber soles balanced on the thin wooden strip of his window sill.

Carol Lockwood, after indulging in too much wine for the evening, would sob. She'd cry for her adulterous husband, of whom spent more time in other women's beds than in their own, for her son whose Father smacked him around on occasion, and most of all for herself. This wasn't how she had pictured her life, not at all, she was supposed to be happy; she had a rich husband, a handsome son, and she had power. But here she was with drinking too much with her mascara running down her face and her lipstick staining the glass.

Richard, more often than not, would be gone by the time Tyler went to bed, or earlier depending on his mood. It wasn't normal for a kid to be hyper-aware of the fact that his Dad was cheating on his Mom, but there was no love lost between the already damaged family dynamics of the Lockwood Household. Mostly Tyler was just happy for the quiet, it was easier to tune out crying than it was shouting or the sound of something breaking, like his happiness for example, and most importantly his ignorant bliss.

So when he looked up from his sketchbook he was surprised to see Jamie Gilbert perched on his window sill, a smug look that shouldn't have looked right on a child's face playing at her lips, but somehow it worked for her. He knew she still had a week left of her fortnight prison sentence, she should have been at home sleeping because she had nothing better to do, but like him Jamie had problems.

"Hey, princess, why the long face?" She drawled, but despite the condescending tone and and the shit eating grin on her face he could hear the sadness of it all.

Tyler gave her a weak smile, "You pulled a shawshank or what?" He was avoiding the question, but she didn't have the heart to get on his case about it, she had missed him after all.

"Yeah, something like that." She trailed off thoughtfully, like she so often did after she climbs through his window, because ultimately there was a reason why she was there.

Sometimes Jamie had this way about her, as if some weight was pulling her down, and as the quietness seeped through it was almost as if she were drowning in the silence with the white noise of her thoughts plaguing that little head of hers.

They sat in that very same silence, minutes having a way of feeling like forever when there was nothing to pass the time. Yet somehow, just knowing that someone else was in the room was comforting, something about a familiar presence made all of their problems seem a little less heart wrenching. They were kids after all, they should be whining about the toys they want and not having enough candy, not wondering if your parents would get a divorce or whatever it was Jamie was so caught up in. Tyler never really knew what exactly brought his best friend to his window this late.

"I think I've got a couple of screws loose upstairs."

It was completely random, severely out of context with just a hint of anxiety but overall absent minded. And because it was Jamie, his best friend, his only friend really, he took the time to think about it.

He was hesitant, but still he found himself asking the million dollar question; " _Why?"_

"I heard something the other day, in the basement of the store, and there was this light…" She bit her lip, unsure if she should continue with what she was about to say, but in the end her need to tell someone won out, and she continued. "And today, I dropped by with my Dad's lunch, and I heard this voice."

She could still hear it, in all honesty, and it's gut heaving screams.

Jamie would never admit it, but she was scared. Because what if Grayson Gilbert wasn't the person she thought he was? Not to say he was perfect, he definitely had his faults, but to experiment on another human being- an unwilling participant to whatever this 'Augustine' association was… It was more than immoral. Infact, it was possibly classified as torture- Which begs the question, is Grayson Gilbert capable of the bodily harm of another human being in order to further scientific research? Jamie wasn't sure if she wanted to know the answer.

In the end you never really knew your parents, not really, because you only ever saw the side of them that they wanted you to, allowing only a small piece of themselves to show in the presence of a child. Jamie's problem was that she saw too much, and now the idea of the pristine Gilbert family had been shattered- not that it had been fully intact in the first place. She could never ignore the hushed arguments at night or the way they liked to pretend, it was childish really but adults had this facade about them, a portrait of what they wanted everyone else to see. Jamie never bought it, and that was her problem.

"Was it a woman?"

She was snapped out of her reverie by the question, the pure distaste and sadness that tainted Tyler's voice, the way he watched her with a grim kind of determination.

Tyler Lockwood thought she had heard her Father with another woman.

It was easy to forget that he didn't buy into all the bullshit too, because in the end Tyler Lockwood probably knew his parents better than any other kid she knew. Better than she did, she realised, because at least he fully knew what went on behind closed doors. And she bet he wished he didn't, because she sure as hell wasn't looking forward to finding out.

"No…" Jamie shook her head, her voice too light for credibility, "No, nothing like that." She said it with more conviction this time, because no matter what her Dad had been up to she doubted it was _that._

"I just, well, I think I might have been hearing things, y'know?"

"Oh."

"Yeah…" Jamie sighed, shaking away the remnants of those damaging thoughts.

It occurred to Tyler that he hadn't seen her in a week, that he hadn't thanked her for what she did. He was the reason she was in trouble, that was a fact, and he hadn't said or done anything about it.

"About Randall-"

Jamie shook her head, butting in carelessly before he said anything too heartfelt. "Don't worry about it, man."

He nodded, a relieved smile tugging at the corners of his lips, because Tyler would never get used to thanking anyone, not even his best friend.

That night William Richardson just happened to need a piss, and imagine his surprise as he walked past the window only to catch a glimpse of Jamie Gilbert as she rode her bike down the rode sluggishly, racing against the steadily rising sun as she pedaled half heartedly back home. He watched as she climbed the tree and walked across the branches like a tight-rope show, _cirque du Gilbert_ style. Ruth had no idea what he was muttering about when he got back into bed, something about a circus and that damned tyke or another.

It was almost as if her head had just hit the pillow when all of a sudden she was being woken up by the unremitting sunlight that stemmed from the open window and the pattering sound of feet against hardwood flooring. Jamie bit back a groan as her door was flung open, just managing to raise her head a centimeter from the pillow before something made impact with the mattress in the form of a small body.

"What's your damage, twisted sister?" It wasn't completely coherent, a yawn midway jumbling the words into one lengthy drawl, but Jeremy had heard her just fine.

"Jamie, I don't feel so good." He whined in a pathetically small, weak voice.

It was the sound of his voice made her lift her head a little higher, and she saw a queasy looking Jeremy peering down at her with his sad brown eyes, the pitifully frail sight of him all pale and tired tugging at her heart-strings in such a way that nothing else could, and she found herself lifting the covers in invitation.

She threw her arm around him as he curled up next to her, mumbling a half hearted "Go to sleep, kiddo."

And as his shallow breaths evened out, and his small body curled up closer into hers, she found herself too tired to keep her eyes open any longer.

Sometimes Jamie would dream, the kind of dreams that made your heart pound and your skin go clammy, and you'd wake up with a soundless scream- open mouthed with no sound readily available, gulping down oxygen greedily like an addict that hadn't had a hit in a while. It was like dry drowning in a way, your semi-conscious mind fully submerged in whatever it was that you were dreaming, your vocal cords spasm and close up after you've surfaced and it shuts off your airways, making it nearly impossible to breathe.

And after a particularly bad dream, Jamie was left feeling the after effects of ghost pulmonary edema. It was like she was really drowning, still submerged despite being awake, left coughing up what felt and tasted like lake water as her chest heaved painfully, still finding it hard to breath and too tired to make a proper attempt. She'd wake up again in the morning with her night clothes plastered to her skin and a slick sheen of sweat clinging to her body, wheezing for air all lightheaded and weak, and she deduced that it was either a drop in blood pressure or her brain being deprived of oxygen; neither was good.

One time, before she'd even caught her breath properly, she saw herself in the mirror. Her skin was a frightening gray with an equally dismaying bluish-tint. It made everything seem all the more real. Jamie had been too scared to look into the mirror after waking up since.

That night she dreamt of the voice.

It wasn't always so horrible, these dreams she had. Sometimes she dreamt of the strangers, she could never catch a proper glimpse at any of them in the darkness, but on occasion a light would shroud one of them, and she could almost make out the details. They were lonely, some more than others, and there was a certain bitterness and harshness that was clearer than everything else. She spent hours speaking to them, but never at the same time. She could never decide if she liked those sorts of dreams or not, but she had decided she much preferred them over the others.

Especially the voice.

So she woke up, a soundless scream on the tip of her tongue, and she clutched Jeremy just a little bit tighter as she fought to breath. She supposed he was an anchor of sorts, and she was scared she'd drown.

* * *

She found herself looking up from her cereal, watching her Mom as she stared down at her coffee cup in despair, vivid visions of her drowning herself in a lukewarm java pool filling her mind. It wasn't normal, but grown ups were decisively strange in Jamie's mind, and she supposed it would all make sense when they were older. If anything it was a welcome distraction, the working ins and outs of her Mother's mind, because anything was better than that damned voice that she couldn't seem to shake off and the everlasting taste of seawater in her mouth.

Meanwhile Miranda found herself feeling conflicted, because lately Grayson had been ever so distant. She was scared, she realised over her morning cup of coffee, and it was justified in a sense. Divorce was a horrible word, and in reality they were nowhere close to ending their marriage, but when he was working a little bit late and she was lying alone in their bed feeling cold and alone and scared, divorce didn't seem so far off at all.

Her husband, oblivious to her plight as husbands so often were, made no haste as he stuffed his car keys in his pocket with a mound of books balancing precariously in one arm. It would only be a few minutes before he left for work, a few hours before she got that call telling her he was going to be late home again and to leave his dinner in the microwave. She was going to be cold and alone that night too, she knew she was, and she knew she'd be scared again, more scared than ever.

She supposed he was seeing another woman.

Even the sound of Jeremy's shaky voice wasn't enough for her to look away from her caffeinated grave, it was cold now and she hadn't so much as sipped it in well over thirty minutes, but she hadn't noticed that either. Jamie had heard him just fine, and she knew what was about to happen. When something fell off the table (She hadn't seen Jamie's wandering hands or the little shove she gave the plastic cereal container) and landed with a resounding _bang!_ Miranda looked up just in time to see Jeremy chuck up the entirety of his breakfast, a concoction of lucky charms and bile.

Jamie watched the food dye from undigested cereal bleed into one another, the colours seeping together like marble tie dye on a sour milk canvas. It wasn't a pleasant sight, and the stench was enough to make someone's eyes water- this was the kind of stuff that must have been a bitch to bring up, and she could feel the ghosting sensation of the acidic burning in her throat.

 _Saltwater,_ her mind supplied helplessly, and Jamie couldn't get the stagnant taste out of her mouth for the rest of the morning.

In her mind she was reviewing a summarised version of the theory of Humorism by the Greek physician Hippocrates, relating the Four Humors to the Four Temperaments. They were ancient theories, and many mistakes were made, but Jamie was amazed by the acknowledgement of bodily fluids and its consequences when out of balance despite people of the time not having a complete understanding of the body nor medicine.

The Four Humors were primarily the makeup and workings of the human body, consisting of black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood, and any excess or deficiency concerning such directly influences one's health and temperament. It was strange to think that this was the view of the body by Greek, Roman, Islamic and European physicians until the modern medical research of the nineteenth century. And the very foundation of such a concept still holds true, though the mess that is the theory of the Four Temperaments has been long since scrapped.

That's why, while her head leaned against the car window and her eyes never strayed from her Father's form, Jamie couldn't help but think of Galen and his renowned experiments.

Nowadays if you were to try and sell the idea that the human body was identical to that of a pig's you'd be laughed out of med school, but Jamie knew there were _some_ similarities and it was as good of a start as any into the anatomical research that would lead to modern science and medicine. Even understanding a pig in a bodily structured sense was an impressive feat back then.

But the idea of Dr. Grayson Gilbert cutting open a live human, much like Galen would cut up a pig, was far from pleasant in Jamie's eyes. And before her mind could stray to that of the Hippocratic Oath and the complications medical science had faced throughout time, they were already at the practitioners.

Once upon a time she would have shared her thoughts and findings with her Dad, because science was to them what that stupid diary thing was to Mom and Elena. Their shared love of science, especially concerning medicine and anatomy, was somewhat of a bonding point, but as she got out of the car she didn't say a word.

Jeremy had a stomach bug, the kind that was as contagious to kids as the plague. Grayson, being the dutiful husband that he was (or wasn't, as Miranda feared), dropped Elena off at Matt Donovan's house with strict instructions to make sure Jamie stayed in the car. The verdict was in, and she was still grounded.

She had curled up with a book, though if you were to ask what the pages said she wouldn't of had the answers, and after an hour of not turning the page her eyes had shut and she had felt the familiar tug of sleep take over.

Downstairs Gilbert was hard at work, and he had only taken a break to go get some coffee. He didn't remember Jamie was there.

If she hadn't of barricaded herself underneath the safety of the desk, retreating from the threat of the voices she was sure she would hear otherwise, maybe he would have seen her. But she did, and he didn't remember. It was a routine after all, and Jeremy getting sick was the last thing on his mind, and if Jeremy wasn't sick then there was no reason why Jamie would be there.

He took an extended lunch break.

She awoke to the sound of groaning and gasping, and inside she acknowledged that the voice was back and it was in pain. Her book and blanket was left under the desk, safely tucked away incase she needed to hide again.

Just like before she walked down the steps, she didn't skip the last few this time, her legs felt like deadweight- pulling her under, down into the basement where lay monsters in wait, hiding in the shadows that danced against the dim blue glow. The door was open this time, but the light was gone.

Metallic tools and medical waste littered the worktops, it was like something akin to a horror movie and it would have given _SAW_ a run for its money. They all looked rather torturous to her, but medical procedures usually were as such, so she could look over that fact, just barely. Books lay open, notes strewn about, and she noticed that there were voice recorders and tapes in use. Her dads usually pristine handwriting that he took the utmost of care to make legible was sloppily written with jagged loops and smudged ink, violent scribbles and messily drawn diagrams decorating each page.

If he hadn't of made a sound then she wouldn't have taken any notice of him at all.

He was sprawled out on the examiner's desk, limbs tied down with leather buckles with blood running down his wrists and legs. She noticed the way he was cut open from his groin to his sternum, how his dermis was beginning to stitch itself back together as his veins and arteries entangled themselves back into working order. He was looking right at her now, and she didn't think she had it in her to look away.

Grayson was back with his coffee.

He walked down the steps at a casual pace, he supposed he would get home a bit later than usual but not as late as he had been recently. There had been progress, and he felt so close to finding what made this thing tick, but he knew he had been neglecting Miranda and th-

Pained groaning. The metallic shuck of a limb hitting a metal surface.

Grayson didn't finish his thought, and a sparse smile flitted at his lips.

He had been neglecting Miranda and the kids, but he never got to finish such a thought, and he didn't remember Jeremy getting sick, Elena going to Matt's, Jamie somewhere upstairs. All that mattered was what was in the basement, and what that meant for medical science as he knew it.

And as he sharpened his scalpel he didn't notice Jamie behind the trolley.

The man on the table never took his eyes off of her, not even while being cut open. He almost looked sad.

Still, Grayson never noticed little Jamie Gilbert perched behind a trolley, her baseball cap just visible as she peeked out with wide, terrified eyes.

 _Don't get sick in here!_ Her mind wailed as she felt the familiar ache of sea water rise in her lungs, _Oooh, Jaime- ol' buddy ol' pal ol' friend of mine- if you up chuck your stuff he'll know you've been in here, and he'll get you for it! Oh, sweet jaysus lord above, he'll get you too!_

* * *

 **(AN:** So... Jamie had unofficially met Enzo, was it worth the wait? Probably not. I won't make any promises, but I'll try to make the next chapter longer and/or quicker. Thanks for reviewing and all that craic.)


	3. Chapter Three, Tall Tales

Come gather 'round people wherever you roam

And admit that the waters around you have grown

And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone

If your time to you is worth savin'

Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone

For the times they are a' changin'!

 _Bob Dylan, The times they are a'changing_

 **(AU: I'm as happy as can be that Bob Dylan won a Nobel Prize for Literature, it's well deserved!)**

* * *

Patsy Cline's ' _Walkin' after midnight'_ was playing, and Jamie was drawing something while she was perched on the window seat. This was a rather typical setup, often Jeremy would wander in and talk to her, or just listen to whatever music she had playing, and it wasn't unusual for him to ask her for help with his homework. Jamie would talk for hours about music, introducing him to all kinds and telling him fun anecdotes or background stories about musicians and raunchy lead singers.

" _I stop to see a weepin' willow, cryin' on his pillow, maybe he's cryin' for me-"_

She looked up, catching sight of her Dad standing at the door, watching her with narrowed eyes and a frown. He didn't smile much anymore, in fact he was barely home, but she couldn't find it in her to miss him.

" _And as the skies turn gloomy, night winds whisper to me, I'm lonesome as I can be."_

"Jamie, where did you hear that song?" He asked, taking a step into her room only to hesitate ever so slightly. When was the last time he had been in here? He didn't know the answer, and Jamie certainly didn't care to know. She didn't care much about anything he did lately.

She sighed slightly, "I don't know, the radio I s'pose. They play a lot of the old stuff."

He was still watching her, and his frown hadn't let up as he let out a disapproving " _Hmm"_ , the kind she'd typically get from her Mom. The kind that her Dad had taken up recently. It seemed like anything she did was wrong, and Jamie was at her wits end with it all. Just what did these people want from her?

"It's just a song." She complained, tugging at a stray lock that had swept into her eyes, "I don't see why you're mad at me."

"I'm not mad, I ju-"

"You're always mad at me." She murmured into her book, but he heard her anyway, and it was enough to make him stop talking, "You and Mom." She clarified.

Her eyes strayed to the mirror, gray eyes staring back at her solemnly, and she tugged at her ratty old baseball cap. For as long as she remembered she had kept her black locks cropped shortly, stuffing them under a yankees cap like a little boy. That thought was almost enough to make her smile, but then she remembered just how much her Mom hated her cap, how she always made little comments here and there about how pretty she'd look with long hair- hair just like Elena's. Jamie looked away from the mirror.

"If you don't like the song I won't play it again." She offered him an achingly sad smile, one of those weary looking ones that made her seem so much older than she was.

Grayson found that it was easy to forget just how young Jamie was, that she was still a child, albeit one that was strangely articulate with a unyielding thirst for knowledge, but a child all the same. It always used to strike him as funny when he'd walk past her room and find her reading complex text books, anything ranging from medical to historical accounts or a piece of classic literature someone her age didn't have the right to understand, never mind openly seek out. He hadn't noticed anything of the sort as of late, in fact he couldn't remember the last time he had really looked at her properly, not just a fleeting glance but taking the time to really look at her.

He suddenly noticed that her face had lost some of its roundness, and that her facial features were more defined, and even though she was sitting he could tell that she had grown. It was strange, the way her eyes seemed hardened and how she held herself. He used to inquire as to what she was currently reading, she would come to him with her findings and talk in great length about her thoughts on the subject, and she used to look at him differently. It wasn't adoration, she was never childish enough to give someone such priority, but in a way it was like she was _his_ little girl.

When had that all changed?

He nodded numbly, his throat felt unbearably dry as thousands of questions raced through his mind, questions that he had never bothered to ask himself before, questions that he wasn't sure he wanted the answers to. "No, no it's fine. I just didn't realise they played music like that on the radio anymore."

"They play a lot of the old stuff on the radio, like The Eagles, they were really big in the seventies, and songs by Elvis and the Beatles are always on."

"I didn't know you liked music so much."

What he meant was he didn't know who his daughter even was nowadays, that they were practically strangers who passed each other in the hallways of their home. He didn't know she was good at art, or the fact that she sat in her room for hours on end listening to music, or how she aced every class and still read medical books- even the ones that she had practically memorised word for word- Grayson Gilbert hadn't taken the time or effort to notice.

She shrugged, the song was over now anyways, Patsy's hauntingly sad voice replaced with The Clash's ' _Should I Stay or Should I Go?"_

" _Darling, you gotta let me know, should I stay or should I go?"_

Her Dad wasn't at the door anymore, and she went back to her sketch. If he had stayed, or perhaps if he had paid more attention to his daughter instead of asking questions he didn't bother knowing the answers to, then he would have noticed that it was a sickeningly accurate drawing of someone he knew quite well, you might even say he knew him inside and out- he had cut him open enough times after all.

* * *

"Just a little bite." He coaxed, a saccharine smile flitting at his lips. The smile of a predator, she knew.

Jamie snorted, "Fuck off, Enzo, there's no way in hell I'm letting you take a bite outta me. You'd kill me in ten seconds flat."

"Oh, come on, love, would I really do that to you?" He chuckled.

Their relationship was an anomaly, with Enzo always trying to cajole her into letting him have a sip only for Jamie to let out a biting remark. He always seemed oddly happy when she'd refuse him, but she couldn't help but as to wonder what he would do if she just let him have at it. She wasn't naive enough to think that she'd make it out alive, despite their uncanny camaraderie and misplaced trust, either he'd lose control or he'd drain her dry out of spite. Both were as likely as each other.

"Yeah, you would." She spoke, a spout of seriousness marring her childish features, "I'd do the same, ya know."

It was unsettling, the way her gray eyes would seemingly unfold and he could tell each sickening thought that passed by. Revenge and spitefulness, but the most terrifying was the understanding that was carried with each bout of such thoughts.

He hesitated, "Are we friends, Jamie?" At that moment he almost seemed childlike, searching for reassurance with a desperation that only a man depraved could carry out.

It always went like this, had done since day one. He'd turn on the charm and ask her to bare her jugular, she'd say no and then he'd ask her if they were friends, and she'd say the same thing each time.

"I call you Enzo don't I?"

"All my friends do." He confirmed with a smile, this time it was an honest sort of smile, and she returned it easily.

This was routine.

He shifted slightly, as much as he could while being shackled to an examiner's table. Asking her to loosen them was of no use, and it wasn't nearly as much fun as trying to persuade her to offer up a vein. "So, what's new?"

After being locked up so long he found even the most trivial of information riveting. A tid-bit of the outside world was worth gold to a man in chains.

"They're painting Elena's room purple, Jeremy hasn't picked a colour yet." She spoke offhandedly.

"What colour is your room getting painted?" It was disgusting how interested he was by it all, and just how invested he was in this little girl.

"It's not." She shrugged, kicking a toolbox of medical instruments that had all been used on him at least once distastefully.

He scrutinised her with his eyes, his frown barely visible as shadows shrouded his handsome face in the dim lighting. "Why not?"

She shrugged, "I guess my walls don't need touching up."

"But if it was getting painted what colour would you choose?" He persisted.

For some strange reason that seemed important just then, something as minimal as the colour scheme of her room was held up there with the holy scriptures in his mind because it was _her._ Jamie Gilbert, the girl whose Father cut him open for work.

Enzo considered her his friend, and he had undoubtedly come to care for the her over time. He liked the way she shot him down when he wanted her blood, ignored the fact that he was secretly craving it, how she didn't pity him when he needed reassurance, and the way she wasn't scared of him at all. It was nice, and he always found himself waiting for her next visit.

The first time she had come down here he had been convinced that he had been seeing things, but he knew it was real when the pain started. And the whole time he had watched her through bleary eyes and gritted teeth.

Imagine his surprise when she returned. She was a brave little thing, and had said no back then too when he had tried to compel her for blood. Overtime they got to know one another, and he had forgotten how lonely he truly was until she came around.

Other than his pitiful attempts to try and compel her they had stayed in mutual silence the first few times she had visited. It was like they both needed the silent reassurance that the other was really there, that their minds weren't playing some cruel trick. He didn't know how many times they had just sat there in silence, staring at each other as if to make sure it was real. Usually she would visit at least once a week, once every fortnight at a stretch (he had counted the days), but it was when she stopped coming that he really felt the loneliness set in. And all of a sudden that silence seemed deafening, because at least when she was there he had _something_.

When she appeared again he felt the inexplicable need to talk, an ugly desperation and helplessness washing over him when he looked at her. He introduced himself as Lorenzo, Enzo to his friends. She said her name was Jamie. He never asked her why she stopped visiting, some part of him dreaded the answer, and as long as she kept coming he supposed it didn't matter.

"Navy green." Jamie spoke all of a sudden, and he snapped out of his musings.

Enzo was at a loss as to what it meant, he didn't know how long they had been sitting there while he thought back on it all. He must have looked it too, because she went on.

"The colour I'd paint my room, I mean." She looked up, offering him an encouraging smile, and he couldn't help but notice it looked more solemn than usual. "Navy green- like the sea."

* * *

They were arguing again. Caroline's parents used to argue a lot too, Jamie couldn't help but think, and now she was the product of a broken marriage. Divorce wasn't a safe word, it held all sorts of uncertainties and complications. It was the embodiment of brokenness. But at that moment divorce didn't seem so far off to Jamie, and it struck her as strange by how unaware Elena and Jeremy were.

She knew they could hear them, maybe not their words but the volume was enough to come to the same conclusion. It was a common thing for Jeremy to come to her room with blotchy cheeks and a tear stricken face, and even Lainey would seek the comfort of her twin when it all got too much. The three Gilbert children would hide under the covers in the safety of Jamie's room, and even though all it did was muffle the noise it somehow made it all the more bearable.

Jamie was their anchor, she was the one that took care of them. She was the one that helped them with their homework, the one that learnt new things so she could teach them, who fixed their mistakes and brushed away their fears and the tears and worked out their problems before they could even comprehend them themselves. Jamie was the one who held it altogether.

It was nights like these that Jamie wouldn't sleep, because if Jeremy or Lainey were to wake up and the shouting was still going on they would need something, anything to make it seem alright.

Usually, morning come, everything was back to normal, and they were a perfectly functional household once more. But not this time.

Miranda refused to look at her husband at the breakfast table, for fear that she'd start crying once again. There was something unsettling in the air, an ultimatum of sorts, and Jamie could smell the alcohol coming from her Mother's coffee cup.

"Jamie." Grayson began, faltering slightly in his speech. She wondered how long he had spent preparing it, if he had practiced it in the mirror, and she felt a familiar dread settle in her bones. There was a morbid anticipation, the kind you got before taking a leap into uncharted territory, but Jamie didn't let on. She stared at her Father blankly.

"Your Mother and I were talking, and we think it's best if you were to spend some time with your Uncle this summer."

Mom was crying now, stifling unruly sobs that wracked her body. It wasn't a mutual agreement, not by a long shot.

"Which Uncle?" She found herself asking, the monotone of her own voice was nearly enough to make her flinch right there.

He carried on grimly, "Your Uncle William."

It occurred to her that her estranged Uncle didn't live in the proximity, that he didn't live in the States at all. Uncle John and Aunt Jenna had played a part in her life, but she couldn't remember meeting her Uncle William at all or if she ever had. He was the brother that her Dad didn't like to talk about, didn't mention at all, a person she wouldn't have known existed if it weren't for the pictures. She felt sick.

"You're sending me away." She managed to choke out, disbelief lacing her words like the whiskey her Mom had poured into her coffee this morning.

"It's only for the summer." He amended, cold and uncaring. No longer was the man she once knew as her Dad there, the person sitting in front of her was another being altogether.

Jamie stood up all at once, the abruptness of her movement sent her chair to the floor with a deafening _clatter._ She felt the familiar ache in her lungs, begging for release, her body felt fully submerged in cold water, like something- _someone-_ was holding her down under.

"I hate you." The words fell from her lips at ease, like the truth sometimes did without your brain so much as registering it.

Grayson was standing now too, she wouldn't have even registered the movement if it weren't for his chair screeching against the floor. His figure loomed over her, and his mouth was moving but she didn't hear a word he said.

It was true. Jamie Gilbert hated her Father, she hated him for hurting Enzo, for lying to everyone, for not standing up for her when her Mother was trying to make her act more like Elena and less like herself, when she was always finding faults in whatever she did or said and he didn't so much as try to stop her, for when he began to do the same. He used to be there, he was the one that understood her, at least on an intellectual level if not anything else.

But she hated him most of all for making her resent him the way she did, because in some ways she couldn't help but feel like it made her a bad person.

"Jamie, sweetie-" Her Mom tried, reaching out for her in a sickeningly drunken manner, and Jamie flinched as if she had just been struck. She shied away from her Mother's touch like it would burn her, she couldn't deal with this right now, and she'd always hated hugs. She couldn't help the bitterness that seeped through when she thought of how if it were Elena they were sending away she wouldn't have even hesitated before latching on to their Mom's waist.

Her accusative eyes wandered to her twin. If it were Lainey they were sending away Jamie would have spoken against it.

But it was Jamie they were sending away, it was Jamie they didn't want, and Lainey just sat at the table watching. She was crying, but Jamie didn't want her tears, she wanted her sister to say she didn't want her to leave.

She ignored the tears in her Mother's eyes, the way her lips trembled as she turned away, and her gaze softened some when they landed on Jeremy.

"You can't send her away." He said in a unnervingly small voice. His face was screwed up in anguish, and his words started to get jumbled as the sobs heaved his tiny frame. "You can't. Not Jamie."

It didn't make her feel any better, and she felt the urge to run away. It was cowardly of her, but she couldn't be the reason Jeremy cried, couldn't face the fact that she was the outcast.

"I'm going to pack." With those final words she began to walk up the steps, her legs felt like lead, deadweights pulling her under. All the while she heard him calling her name, begging her not to leave, her Dad's angry shouts and her Mom pleading her to come back downstairs. The voices all mixed together, just one headache that twinged sharply with every piercing comment or shrill wail.

Elena was the only one that didn't say a word.

And for the first time in her entire life, Jamie was sinking.

* * *

She couldn't remember packing.

It was after everyone was asleep that she had realised a duffle bag was on the bed, her clothes spilling out in what she assumed had been a result of her haste in shoving them in. Her Mom had tried to come in, but Jamie had locked the door, and she didn't say anything when she kept trying to get her to come out.

She just sat there, resting her head against the door and every now and then someone's steps would falter just outside, she could her their breathing as they paused just outside her door only for the footsteps to start up again and fade away after a while. It felt like her insides were churning, a strange sensation clawing it's way to her throat, but no matter what she did she couldn't cry or make a sound. Her eyes found their way to the mirror, where she was just a tiny dot of black shrouded in the shadows, surrounded by the vast emptiness of the room, drifted out at sea with no anchor to keep her grounded.

The room seemed empty, and she realised just how little she had in it. There were no posters or photographs, the walls were barren and only the bookshelves were full. It didn't seem like her room anymore, not when she knew she was leaving it. She almost regretted her lack of sentimental outlook, the way she didn't value anything other than practicality. The sight of her baseball bat and a few cd's was almost enough to make her smile, she had something at least, if not much. But then she saw her reflection again, as a car drove by and its headlights streamed through the cracks of the curtains, and she saw just how pathetically small and vulnerable she looked.

For some reason those passing headlights were enough to make her spring into action, it didn't mean anything to her at the time but something about the situation must have reminded her of how easy it was to escape. How she didn't have to be drifting alone, not while there were others out there whose lives still seemed to be passing by. Time didn't stop for nobody, not even the sad life of Jamie Gilbert.

It was at that moment, as the headlights passed and it's light lit up the room and she saw the duffle bag on her bed in the reflection of the mirror, that it occurred to her that she could run away. Something similar to the stories in all those books she read, when stuck between a rock and a hard place one's fight or flight tended to kick in, and Jamie was decisively tired of fighting. She'd been tired of it for a long time. It was irrational, she would have been the first to admit it, but something about it was appealing at the time.

At first she had meant to see Tyler, because by Jamie's standards he ranked, first and foremost, as her best friend. But in a rare moment of happiness - she had watched as Mrs. Lockwood kissed his forehead in the pinnacle of motherly tenderness - she didn't have the heart to put a damper on his moment. And Tyler truly did deserve every bit of happiness he got in life, because it really wasn't enough.

 _Elena and Jeremy were bickering again, they'd been at it for a full twenty minutes before Lainey threw a tantrum. If there was one thing Jamie wouldn't tolerate, it was her twin acting like a spoilt brat._

" _Enough, Elena. Go get your stuff or we'll be late." She called, and Lainey pouted at the lack of her sentimental nickname, but if Jamie noticed then she didn't let on._

 _She was leaning against the doorframe, waiting patiently for her siblings to get ready for school. Patience was one of her many virtues, being the product of delayed gratitude and the such, and yet waiting never seemed to grate on her nerves more than in the mornings when Elena was acting up. Jeremy too, to a lesser extent, but Jamie supposed it was a case of middle child insecurity for her twin._

 _Jeremy joined her shortly, backpack zipped and strapped and sneakers all laced up- just the way she had showed him. She smiled, because even their baby brother was better at getting ready than Lainey, and he kicked up less of a fuss while he was at it. Patience wearing thin, she was supposed to meet Tyler by the third lamp post five minutes ago, her smile fell. When Lainey finally put in an appearances Jamie noticed she was wearing some ridiculously girly outfit with hair clips in her hair and her pretty pink sneakers spotless. She rolled her eyes, walking out the door without a word._

 _It was a strange sight, the eldest twin in her baggy grass stained jeans, ripped at the knees and showcasing a few bruises and scabs, a simple tee that was too big for her slight frame and her red chucks that were caked in mud. Of course, she was always wearing her yankees cap backwards, a few loose curls falling into her face and brushing the back of her neck. Elena on the other hand was immaculate as always, with her long straight hair that never seemed knotted, her skin naturally tanned opposed to the dark colour of her twin acquired by outdoor activities._

 _It wasn't uncommon for people to assume that Elena was the only girl in the Gilbert siblings, and they always had to explain that they were, in fact, twins, not just siblings._

 _Even their eyes were different. Jamie's were grey, a horribly cold colour when compared to Lainey's doe brown orbs. Her sun kissed skin was lightly freckled, hair jet black, a mess of knots and curls, while her twin was a plain brown shade and dead straight. Physically they were nothing alike, and personality wise they couldn't be more different._

 _By the time they were down the street Bonnie Bennett and Caroline Forbes had joined them, Caroline sparing her a timid smile and Bonnie showing her distaste before giving Lainey their attention. Jamie knew that Matt Donovan would be somewhere nearby, and Jeremy had started to lag behind while talking to someone his age._

 _When an agitated Tyler Lockwood came into view, slumped against the lamppost and staring down at his battered chuck taylors, Jamie broke away from her siblings respective groups._

" _See you on the flipside, Jer!" She called over her shoulder, not bothering to say anything to her twin in knowing that she was too busy talking to notice._

 _Tyler raised his head at her voice, his face lighting up when he saw her approaching._

" _Why the long face, Lockwood?" She greeted carelessly, in the way that only Jamie could, and throwing her arm over his shoulders in a showcase of camaraderie. Just like usual._

 _He shook his head, mumbling a sheepish "Thought you'd ditched me or something."_

 _Jamie knew something had been going on at home, the usually arrogant boy reduced to forlorn looks and a sickening vulnerability that didn't suit him at all. Just like every little boy, he hated feeling weak, and she watched him knowingly, because there was no way in hell that anyone else had ever seen this side of him. Somehow she knew, just like she always knew, that his asshole Dad had done or said something cruel, because he was one of the few people who was capable of making Tyler feel worthless._

 _It was a strange thing, Jamie acknowledged, how parents, no matter how useless they were at times, were able to define you._

 _She ruffled his hair, boisterous as ever. "Nah, you're the bugs to my bunny, the Bob to my Dylan, I couldn't replace you just like that!"_

 _In a small town like Mystic Falls you couldn't be seen going soft, it would ruin your reputation. Tyler cared about shit like that, she knew, and even if it didn't make a difference to her she'd still uphold it for his sake. Reputation meant more to him than he's ever admit, it gave him power over everyone else, just like how his Dad had power over him. And Jamie Gilbert was his partner in crime._

 _Tyler Lockwood was decisively not a victim, the fight was all too much fun._

" _Race ya to the gates!"_

 _And with that all his troubles were gone, left behind as their sneakers pounded against the pavement._

Walking away from the Lockwood's place with a small smile adorning her face, Jamie couldn't help but think of the imperfections of a boy like Tyler.

The reason Jamie liked sports was because of him, physical activity kept him calm, always had done. He was a little rough around the edges, but he was one of the most passionate people Jamie had ever met. It was like he felt everything tenfold- anger, sadness, happiness- it was chaotic, and it made things such as football that much more exciting. The win, the build up- it was addictive when you had someone like Tyler by your side.

She hoped that she would always have Tyler by her side.

Next stop was Enzo. Jamie had decided to say her goodbyes to the Richardson's tomorrow morning, knowing that Mr. Richardson and Rita would be up at the crack of dawn as per usual.

It was funny, how normal it felt walking down the steps to the basement when it had seemed oh so daunting back then. How by walking down those steps she had lost her Father but gained a friend. Did Lainey even remember it, had she ever been affected by it all the way Jamie was? No, she amended, because Lainey was blessed with blissful ignorance, and no matter how perfect such a thing seemed, Jamie wouldn't give up her knowledge for anything. Not even for the unadulterated love of her parents.

Jamie was an all-seeing, all-knowing entity, a force to be reckoned with. And it made life just that much more harder, yet just that much more enticing.

"Well, if it isn't my favourite blo-"

"Don't finish that sentence, Enzo."

He whistled lowly, " _Someone's_ feeling moody today." At this her sent her a pointed look, but it was ruined by the amusement he felt for it all.

"They're sending me away."

The amusement died just like that, and suddenly Enzo looked exactly how she felt.

By the time Jamie left the basement the telltale signs of sunrise were blooming. It had felt all too much like goodbye, and in a way it was, but there was a certain aspect of finality to the ideal that frightened her. And she knew Enzo felt it too. The sight of him looking so helpless and alone was much more scary than blood shed.

He had noticed the duffle bag, she realised, but he didn't ask for an explanation and she never offered one.

"Going somewhere?"

In the middle of town Zach Salvatore stood tall, looking all too much like the pitiful drunk that he was.

"I don't know yet." She admitted, sitting down next to him as if it were an everyday occurrence. Him drinking didn't make a difference to her, the bottle was nearly empty anyways.

He took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one, he went to offer her one but faltered, setting the pack down beside him. "Forgot that you're a kid. Those things'll kill ya. Isn't it a little late for you to be out here?"

Grey orbs darted to the steadily rising sun, "Don't you mean early?"

He smiled easily and as readily as a drunk man so often would, and he seemed accepting of her response.

"I ran away too, when I was around your age."

Jamie said nothing, staring straight ahead. There was nothing to say in the first place, and he didn't seem to mind. Maybe he was just as lonely as she felt. She always seemed to attract the loneliest of people.

"Do you like to read, Jamie?" He spoke suddenly, flicking his cigarette away and crushing it beneath his boots, mumbling something about bad habits while doing so.

She was momentarily taken aback, because Zach Salvatore treated people with a practised politeness that always came across as cold and distant, and there was no reason for him to remember her name after the few and far between moments that they had met one another.

"Yes, sir."

"I've got a library, at the boarding house, do you know where that is?"

Jamie thought about it for a second, she'd played countless games of baseball on the fields near the boarding house, it was a little ways along the dirt paths her and Tyler liked to bike. She nodded numbly, and he offered her a soft smile.

"Well, if you ever want to read, or just some place to go, you're welcome to come over." And then he stood up and walked away.

She noticed absently that he had left his packet of marlboro on the bench, but when she picked them up he was already out of sight and she didn't feel like chasing after a drunk man who was just as lost as she was.

Jamie never did forget the strange Zach Salvatore or his drunken ramblings and generous offers.

* * *

Uncle Billy wasn't so bad, truth be told. In fact, Jaime would even go as far to say that she liked him.

The first time she had so much as caught a glimpse of him was at the airport. He didn't offer to carry her bag or bother with such niceties.

"Look at you!" He taunted, "You look like a little boy in that gettup! Shouldn't you be wearing a dress or something, y'know, like a girl?"

"Oh yeah? Then why aren't you wearing a dress, princess?" She bit out, adjusting her cap with a scowl. So much for greetings, she thought bitterly.

He laughed, a surprisingly lovely sound, "You're a right little tinker, ain'tcha?"

"It's a dumb name." Jamie pointed out, kicking at the linoleum floor of the airport absentmindedly as they went towards the exit.

Billy's eyes softened just a tad, and his long strides slowed just enough for her to keep up at ease. "Aye." He agreed, "It's a dumb name."

He was tall, she noticed, taller than her Dad and Uncle John, she reckoned he was at least six foot if not taller, and he was dressed like so often a practical man was. The tee he wore underneath his plaid shirt and well worn leather jacket wasn't clean, neither were his jeans or engineer boots, and he had the hardened face of a man who had worked an honest, or not so honest, life. She briefly spared his grey eyes a thought, and how he still had a full head of messy black curls. In a strange sense she felt like she belonged.

It was halfway through summer, and Jamie would have to go back soon. They were walking through a field, there was field after field after field, as far as the eye could tell, and apart from that there were a few roads and a couple of pubs back the way they came.

"Okay, so maybe your folk don't want you, but who cares?" He announced boldly, watching his niece with a newfound determination. "I was the black sheep too, kiddo."

"No shit?" Jaime grinned, something akin to warmth in her eyes as she watched him.

"No shit." He agreed.

It was somewhat of a bound between them, both being unwanted and alone. The black sheeps of the Gilbert family. Except neither of them were alone anymore, and all of a sudden Jamie found herself swimming again, and this time she had someone there to keep her afloat. For now, at the very least, that was enough.

* * *

 **(AU: And here it is, just as promised. The chapter's a bit choppy here and there, but so is Jamie's thought process as time progresses. Thanks for the reviews and stuff, I'd really love to answer them all but I wouldn't want to give away the rest of the story. All I can say is that we're coming to an end with the pre-S1 chapters. Which sucks, because I was enjoying writing these. In fact, next chapter could well be the final glimpse into Jamie's childhood. No promises though, because even with a plan if inspiration strikes I'm going for it.)**


	4. Chapter Four, Dearly Departed

You set sail across the sea

Of long past thoughts and memories.

Childhood's end, your fantasies

Merge with harsh realities.

And then as the sail is hoist,

You find your eyes growing moist.

All the fears never voiced

Say you have to make your final choice.

 _Pink Floyd, Childhood's End_

* * *

He found her at three in the morning, curled up on the tiled flooring of the kitchen, tugging at her hair with her fists, her arms covering her face as she spewed out incentives and obscenities. She didn't look right without her yankee cap, still adorned in her jeans with the knees ripped out and an oversized tee as if she hadn't gone to bed. She probably hadn't.

He had noticed her sleeping pattern was off, but had put it down to homesickness. Or rather, had hoped and prayed that it was just a common bout of such.

"Tink?" He called out to her, standing in the doorway, and she saw his figure backlit like the ones in her dreams, an unnamed entity that perversed her slumber and took refuge in her nights. She had spent too long staring into the nothingness of the dark, where his face was presumed.

Jamie supposed she was hysteric, it was the sleep deprivation really, the aching of her bones and weariness of her body, the innate tiredness and fatigue she couldn't rid of. In a way it was her own personal hell, personified by the drowning in her dreams and the voices of the unknown. She hated her subconscious, hated the prison she had made in her own mind. The one she had yet to escape.

"Elena blamed me, y'know?" She spoke, but she wasn't addressing him, not really, because just like the figures in her dreams he'd disappear too. "For their fighting, I mean." She elaborated, for his sake or her own he wasn't quite sure, but he supposed she meant her parents.

She hesitated, but only for a second, "She said she hated me. My own twin."

The harsh _slap!_ Of flesh hitting linoleum floor resounded through the empty home, through her empty head, one that had been so full of thoughts and ideas not too long ago but now only recognised the fallacies of life. If it weren't for the stinging sensation in her hand she would have been lost. Left adrift.

He took the time to look at her, realising he had never really _seen_ her before, not really, not fully. She was just his brother's kid, the one dumped on his doorstep for the summer, and they were both painfully aware of that fact. So he let himself look, from her pretty grey eyes to her tear stained cheeks, the way she had freckles dusting across her sun stained skin, how her body seemed to close in on itself, the way her fists shook and the hand she had used to strike the floor was busted, blood staining porcelain.

"Why don't they want me?" She let out in a hopeless wail, rightfully angry and painfully sad, "Why don't they want me anymore, man?"

She sniffled, wiped the wetness from her cheeks forcefully with a sanguinary fist, trembling, blood streaked across her cheeks where tears once fell. All of a sudden a leg lashed out. "Shit!" She swore, her chucks smacking violently against the table with an almighty _crash!_ Teacups and saucers _clinked_ and _clanked_ against the wooden surface. "God damn it all…"

Her voice hitched before it died out, a rasp of profanity and blasphemy that she was entitled too.

"God damn it all to hell."

It was when she kicked her leg out again that he came too, that he saw the mess of his kitchen and the broken glass that littered and loitered the floor, the cups that were teetering dangerously at the edge. Her blood seeping through clasped hands, seeping through her fingers and slipping away.

"Tinker!" He said her name like a prayer, and he grasped her by the shoulders, shaking her a little, partially because he too was shaking, "Tinker, listen to me!"

"I want you, okay? I want you, darling."

She hung her head sadly, another sob wracking her tiny frame, "Nobody loves me."

He wrapped her up in his arms, settling his head atop hers, "How could anyone not love you?"

They stayed there, wrapped up in each other, rocking back and forth until the early hours of the morning. Neither remembered separating, or going to their own rooms, but by morning come it was as if nothing happened.

* * *

"Ain't got no need for a dog, it's just another mouth to feed." He murmured around his cigarette.

 **"** **But your girl might like one all the same, Bill." Reid Laughlan spoke. "It'd be pick of the litter."**

He glanced up from the array of scrap metal he had been so preoccupied with, sparing him a once over to see if he was being as truthful as he was saying.

Reid Laughlan was the local mechanic, or at least, that's what the sign in his backyard said. He wasn't licensed or anything, not that it mattered round these parts. He had bright red hair, shy of balding- any day now, Billy supposed- and watery eyes, the sort that seemed honest in all it's imperfections. He was nice enough, not some inbred farmer like most folk around these parts, and all his prejudices and roundabout ways he kept to himself, and Billy was a man who could appreciate the sentiment. Overall, Reid was the type of guy to smoke three packs of cigarettes a day and then complain about the price of a pint, but he was also a guy that would buy you a drink back. A respectable sort by all means.

Diverting his eyes from Reid's booze stained wife beater and piss covered shoes, Billy gave a sharp nod. "I'll think about it."

And he did think about it. That night he watched as Jamie fed the fire, noting the smudge of black on her cheek with a half smile, and he had been thinking about settling down anyhow. So he supposed he could look after the damned thing when she went back home, and then she could come look after it in the summer time.

Yeah, she could come back next summer, come look after her mutt.

Her birthday was coming up, just a few days away anyways, and he had to get her something good. God knows he'd missed enough of her damn birthdays as it was.

The next day Billy called Reid, "I'll take one," he said, "we'll be round at two on the dot, you better hold true, Reid."

"Aye, I'll hold true alright. See ya at two, Bill."

And Reid Laughlan did hold true. With a certain softness about him, Billy watched as Jamie played with the pups. For some reason the bitch that bore the litter didn't pay any mind, though when he went to stick his hand in the pen she went for him. Damn near took a finger, too. He watched his niece laugh while he swore under his breath, but she didn't miss the way his lips twitched upwards or the way he glared at the bitch for all he was worth.

She chose a handsome blue merle tri, the runt of the litter despite having her pick. It had one eye such a light shade of blue that it looked near white, the other a dirty shade of brown. The greyish-blue tint it's breed was renowned for was more of a dusting, with patches of black, white and brown here and there. It wouldn't have a beautiful long coat, though Billy thought such fancy coats were stupid no matter what the breed so maybe that was a blessing in disguise, it's fur was more shaggy and straggly, coarse here and there- though Reid had insisted that it was too early to tell. Billy almost choked on his laughter at that, just what was he trying to sell here? She already chose the pup.

On the way home Billy watched her through the rearview mirror, she was sprawled out on the backseat with the pup resting on her chest, it's giant paws too big for it's tiny frame.

He cleared his throat, a rough sound that suited him, "Do you like it?"

"Course I like him, I picked him didn't I?" She answered simply, and the pup cocked it's head to the side at the sound of her voice. It was a curious little thing, her new pet. Not once did she ever look up, so she didn't see her Uncle's satisfied smile- the crooked kind that tugged higher one side than it did the other.

"What's his name?" He asked, "All good farm dogs have a name."

"Roscoe."

He nodded, "Sounds like a wild west name to me."

"Could be worse." She murmured, an amused smile tugging at her features as she scratched Roscoe behind the ear. "I coulda named him Sundance."

Billy snorted amusedly, "And I thought naming him after a god damned pistol was as western as it gets." He even went on, staring at her reflection thoughtfully, "You could be Billy the Kid."

"No, I want to be Charlie Bowdre or Doc Scurlock."

"You don't want to be the main character?"

The question was an eery mirror of her relationship with Enzo, of the way he always questioned her like she was the most interesting being on planet earth. Which was ironic, all things considered- his _condition_ , the basis of what he was and who he was solely on a rather strange diet. So Jamie stared at Roscoe intently, a certain sadness seeping through as she thought about her friend.

"Charlie Bowdre shares a marker with Billy and O'Folliard, you know. His legacy, the engraving above their names, was 'PALS'. They stayed true, I like that. And Doc, well, he was called Doc because he studied medicine. Did you know he got shot in the face? Knocked his front teeth out and came out of the back of his head. Funnily enough he lived the longest."

Billy shook his head amusedly, "You're too smart to be related to me."

"Dad's a doctor, but I still prefer you." She pointed out in that smart alek way of hers, the kind that would usually grate on his nerves if it weren't for the inexplicable being that was Jamie Gilbert.

There was just something about her that he couldn't understand, nevermind explain. An all consuming aura, a likeableness that shone through and overrided everything she did and said. Where she got it, he had no clue, but she certainly didn't get it from Grayson. He was certain of that, if nothing else.

"Yeah, well, you're too smart to be related to him either, Tink."

* * *

"Roscoe! Coe- C'mere, boy!" Jamie crooned, and along came Roscoe bounding his way towards her, with gangly limbs and shaggy hair. He hit her full force, and she toppled with the weight of him. Billy might have chastised him if it weren't for Jamie's laughter and the lovely smile that graced her face. He amended that he's stop such folly when he got a bit bigger. That's what he'd been telling himself for the last few weeks at least. Secretly he didn't have the heart to give out to the subject of Jamie's pride and joy, the only thing remotely innocent about her was the feelings as such she bestowed upon dear ole Roscoe.

Of course, those feelings had been inclined towards him too, what with his link to Roscoe and therefore her happiness. She practically worshipped the ground he walked on after he got her that damn mutt. But it wasn't without a pinch of salt, lacking in the disingenuous and unyielding love and admiration in which one so young trusts an adult with. Jamie knew his faults, acknowledged them every time with a snarky comment or rolling her eyes, always. There was nothing naive about her, in which she was wiser and more mature than those twice, easily thrice, her age. Because she could easily distinguish someone's faults and intentions, and she could acknowledge them without blame, accept them for what they were.

It was in this that William James Gilbert found a companion, and for the first time in his life he was content.

Because Tinkerbell Jamie Gilbert, despite having a god awful name, would never ask or expect anyone to change.

Change wasn't possible in her eyes, not in terms of people at least. Of course, an alcoholic could give up the drink, but he was still an addict, that didn't in any way reform, human nature was incapable of change. It was simply a variation in habits, and while mankind was typically a creature of habit, it could be varied. Attitudes and outlooks were interchangeable, depending on the strengthening and socialisation of such beliefs, but the basic fundamentals and flaws of the human character were permanent. Some people simply hid it better than others.

Like her Father. Who knew that he was dissecting a man in the basement? Well, Jamie did, and she saw him for what he was. A liar, a dirty, rotten liar. He was a hypocrite, and Jamie hated liars and hypocrites and cheats. And he _was_ cheating, because he was using something that the medical world was unaware of in order to further his own research for the most selfish reasons, he hadn't done anything for science as a whole, only hurt people.

To Jamie, it seemed as if her Uncle Billy was the best kind of adult, the honest kind. The urge to protect his own resounded deep within his very being, and in her eyes loyalty was the most redeemable quality to mankind, a diminishing one, Jamie noted, and something her own father failed to grasp. Uncle Billy was a rare breed indeed, and she wanted to be just a little more like him when she grew up.

She knew her father and him didn't get on, but even so Billy still took her in, treated her like his own, and she thought of such as the highest of honors.

Jamie wanted to protect her own. She had Lainey and Jeremy to look after, to guide carefully in the right direction, to make sure they were wanted and loved. Tyler needed her by his side, someone that wouldn't take his shit and tell him like it really was, the calm to his storm. Enzo couldn't be without her reassuring gaze, her cut throat words and amused smiles. Zach Salvatore was in need of someone to stave off the loneliness. The Richardson's needed a glance of youth to keep them going.

Even Caroline seeked Jamie out, despite the lack of friendliness between them, to talk about such taboos as divorce and hatred and fear. Bonnie, when she talked about her drunken Grandmother and felt the bitterness of a one-parent-household, would revel in Jamie's steady speech, the way she somehow understood the situation without needing to be told. And Matt would always find comfort in the teasing and the smiles she always gave him.

Somehow, all of Lainey's friends had found something in Jamie, something they couldn't find in Lainey herself.

There had been no one to protect Jamie though, no one to show her the lighthearted side of it all, she had to do that herself. Now, at the very least, she had Billy and Roscoe, and that was plenty enough for her.

And yet she couldn't bring herself to tell him about her dreams. They weren't as bad, nowhere near as bad as they were back home, it was almost as if she felt disconnected. She hadn't drowned, not once since she arrived in this foreign place. It was just the strangers and their strangled conversations. Sometimes their words made her head pound for hours on end.

Part of her wanted to, but it was that night he found her in the kitchen that prevented her from doing so.

Jamie, while still technically a child, and thus so was well within her right to display such tendencies, hated the way she acted. Like she was _weak_. It was a dog eat dog world, weakness was a point of exploitation, and she'd be damned if she was going to let anyone take advantage. Even if it was Uncle Billy. Trust only went so far.

Trust, she scoffed, another display of adolescence. Oh, how her youth inconvienienced her so.

* * *

Elena had been waiting for Jamie that night, after their Parents had announced that she was going away. She had been the only one not to say anything at the dining table, the only one to watch on in silence as her twin escaped upstairs. Eventually she managed to get into Jamie's room, only to find her missing.

She waited, thoughts of Jamie running away or doing something drastic filling her pretty little head. Because her twin was the bad one, the one that caused all the trouble and ruined everything. In the end though she fell asleep on Jamie's bed, where she had sought comfort only the night before.

Somehow, this image of Jamie had manifested itself in Elena's head, and all of a sudden an all consuming bitterness and heinous jealousy reared its ugly head, and she did nothing to stop it. Elena wasn't one to second guess herself, didn't have that innate introspective that seemed hardwired in her counterpart, but Jamie always had been the exceptional sort.

When she woke up to see Jamie slipping in through the window, she watched on with judgy eyes as her twins bag, already packed, had fell to the floor. She hesitated when she saw Elena staring at her from her own bed, but pulled herself into the room after a second or so of recognition.

"What do you want, Lainey?" Jamie spoke, and Elena noted that she had a grown up voice. Too young, too ignorant to recognise the wariness and tiredness that plagued her other half. Elena hated the way Jamie was always so composed, took it as an insult, as if Jamie were being condescending, just like when they were little and Jamie was always better at whatever game they were playing.

It was hard to pretend it wasn't always a competition when their parents continuously put them up against each other, but while Jamie thought it was annul Elena couldn't help but take it to heart. She thought Jamie didn't care about competing with her because she was already winning, and Elena didn't want to lose. She reasoned that nobody wanted to lose, that she wasn't simply being petty, and thus reasoning made what she felt valid.

She judged her sister with imploring eyes, and a sudden bout of hatefulness and spitefulness, the kind she had kept to herself this morning, took over. "It's all your fault you know."

Elena, still so painfully young and naive, thought she knew everything. She thought that she understood why grownups argued and said and did the things they did, thought she could comprehend such complex matters on her own. She was wrong, no where near the mark, no where near the level of intelligence and comprehension Jamie possessed, but she had fooled herself into thinking otherwise.

Her mother had doted on her far too much, her father's lack of discipline had let her emotions and thoughts run awry. She had been sat upon that damned pedestal for far too long, and Jamie was the only one capable of knocking her off. Not that she would, she was far too smart to prize coddling over independance, but that didn't mean Elena didn't think she was a threat.

If anything, Jamie was the biggest threat of all.

Elena had always thought too much of herself and too little of others, and no matter how smart she thought she was she'd never learn. That was her downfall, and in the end that would always be why she put a rift between herself and Jamie.

Jamie's silence only made it worse, because somehow Elena took that as a sign of guilt, she never once stopped to think she could be wrong. Of course she didn't, she was the golden child after all.

"You're the reason they argue." She stomped her foot, like a toddler having a tantrum, as she was so prone to doing, raising her voice despite risking waking everyone up. "You ruin _everything,_ Jamie!"

"If that's what you think then why don't you just go? Get the hell out of my room and go back to playing happy families, Elena." Jamie shrugged, and for a second Elena looked scared. Jamie wasn't passive aggressive, there was nothing passive about her, and the only thing that stood between her getting a bloody nose or a cutting remark- the kind that put life into a retrospective state and made you question everything around you- was their familial ties. Jamie could ruin her, she knew, and Elena liked her life just the way it was.

She didn't want to rethink anything, to realise the horrible flaws of her lifestyle and perspective, she was scared of change. As she should be, because with that realisation came a certain weight, a heaviness that wasn't there before. God knows Elena's fragile figure and evasive presence couldn't hold it.

Even though Elena had been the one to confront her, her eyes still shone with hurt. Somehow she was the victim yet again, and while Jamie loved her sister there was nothing she abhorred more than playing the victim, something of which Elena had perfected at an early age. It was too late to weed it out, to pull it by the roots with an almighty _yank!_ And sever the ties. No, playing the victim was as natural to Elena as refusing to be the victim was to Jamie.

" _I hate you! I hate your guts!"_

Those were the words that rang through Elena's head on a Friday afternoon, at 5:55 sharp. She was standing at the dance hall entrance, had been for twenty five minutes now, and she vividly recalled her Dad agreeing to pick her up. Her ballet class, the ones she had been taking since before she could remember, started at 4:00 on the dot and finished precisely at 5:30. All the other kids were long gone. Jeremy had appeared some ten minutes ago, he had managed to cross the busy road all by himself in order to wait for their Dad together.

"He's not coming, Elena." Jeremy spoke suddenly, and Elena looked away from the road for the first time in fifteen minutes. It worried him, the way she was staring straight ahead at the monotones of the cement and the blurs of cars passing by at a breakneck pace. She was staring as if there was something there, something to actually see other than the daily going ons of Mystic Falls.

She frowned, "Of course he's coming, he said he would."

Jeremy huffed, "He's forgotten before, let's just walk-"

"We can't, Jer, the road-"

"Jamie can cross the road alright."

Elena promptly clamped her mouth shut, a staleness settling in the air, and Jeremy looked ahead determinedly.

It was true. If Jamie was here they wouldn't have to wait, she would have been able to walk across the street without fearing being flattened by a two tonne lorry, and she'd have helped Lainey change out of her leotard and washed the paint off Jeremy's face. Jamie would have done a lot of things, but Jamie wasn't here.

Everything didn't go back to normal after she left, in fact, if anything it only got worse. Grayson had forgotten to pick them up before, but Jamie had always been there to walk them home and Elena wasn't entirely sure if she could cross the main roads, where the cars were so fast and there being no stoplight for two solid blocks. It felt like longer in her mind, and two blocks went tenfold as anxiety hit her in the stomach like a tonne of bricks.

Her parents still argued, not even putting up with the pretense that nothing was wrong, and Elena realised it wasn't her twins fault, it never had been in the first place. It was their parents, they were the ones shouting, Jamie was just a convenient excuse to get at each other's throats, the scapegoat to marital problems. But Jamie wouldn't let them shout at her or Jeremy, she would always be there to take the blame, to tell their parents what's what. And she would have walked them home okay and wouldn't have cried when their mom had found them and she would have helped Elena change and wiped the paint off of Jeremy's face.

She needed Jamie, her twin, but it became strikingly clear to her in that particular moment that Jamie didn't need her. Somehow, she had become co-dependent on someone without having to return the favour. She would readily follow Jamie's lead and reap the benefits, but the moment she left Jamie would never need her back, and it felt like she'd simply cease to function in that case, just like she was doing now. It was a sudden realisation, perhaps a sign that she was finally growing up, and she supposed that was down to Jamie's absence too.

Elena didn't know what it was like to sink, not like Jamie did.

Eventually Jeremy got an adult to help them cross the road, and when they were a healthy ten minutes walk away from home Miranda pulled up in her car, after having went to buy groceries.

"Oh, Elena." Miranda sighed, getting out of the car at the sight of her two children, "Why aren't you changed? And Jeremy, you've still got paint all over your face! Where's Grayson?"

Elena promptly burst into tears, flinging her arms around her Mom's waist in hope of finding some sort of comfort there. It didn't work, her Mom seemed all too tired and not at all concerned about Elena at that moment, which only made her cry more.

Jamie wouldn't have cried, Jamie would have had them home by now. But Jamie wasn't here.

"I want Jamie!" Elena wailed, and Jeremy promptly began to sob too.

Miranda's weary face seemed to age on the spot, and she let out another teary sight, something she had been doing a lot lately. "So do I."

* * *

"You excited about going back home?" He spoke gruffly, shifting his weight uncomfortably as his hands worked the steering wheel.

Jamie shrugged, her gaze never straying from the extensive drag of dirt out the window as Roscoe's head rested atop her lap.

"Use your words, Tink."

"I don't know." She murmured.

"What do you mean you don't know?" He mocked, "You either are or you ain't, 's as simple as that!"

"Fine!" Jamie snapped, "I don't want to go back, I don't want to see my parents, or for Elena to pretend she's happy to see me and for Jeremy to care!"

His eyes softened a little, "Well, okay."

She repeated the word tiredly, finally looking at him as he kept an eye on the road, "Okay?"

"Yeah, Kiddo, it's okay."

Hesitating slightly, Jamie slumped back, her shoulders sagging as she stroked Roscoe absentmindedly. "Do I really have to go back?" She spoke in the smallest voice he had ever heard, and it almost seemed as if she hadn't meant to say it aloud.

Nodding grimly, he replied, "Yeah, you do." Sparing her a glance he dared to add, "but you'll be back. Next summer at the latest."

* * *

She was perched on his windowsill when he came in, leaning heavily against the wooden frame, and a small part of him was scared she'd fall. Grey eyes stared at him importuning, heavy lashes falling lazily as she smiled. Jamie Gilbert was back, not that she had bothered to tell him where she was going in the first place.

He let it sink in, the sight of her here in his bedroom just like old times. Of course, she hadn't been gone that long, but to him it felt like years, decades even, and so he drank in the sight of her like a man dying of thirst. It was needful of him, but he had long ago accepted the fact that he needed Jamie like a smackhead needed heroin. And he was all too aware that she didn't need him, could cast him aside at any given moment, and in his mind she did just that. Jamie had disappeared without a trace, leaving him in the dust, and he hated it.

Tyler ignored her with a heavyset mind, dumping his sports bag beside the desk before dropping into his chair. If she was too good to say goodbye then he sure as hell wasn't going to say hello.

"I never took you for one with _abandonment_ issues, Ty." Jamie spoke, her lovely, low mocking voice making his heart pound and his lips tug up.

He'd been waiting to hear her voice again, desperately, pathetically alone. It was weak, Jamie hated weak, and maybe that's why she had ditched him- Took off into the sunset without him. He had missed her, more than she'd ever miss him, more than he'd ever miss anyone, even Uncle Mason. Jamie was to Tyler what the sun was to the moon, and without the sun the moon ceased to cycle. It was a pretty analogy, one that he only enjoyed because of Jamie's love for astrology, but she tended to affect every little thing no matter how unaware she was of it.

"What the hell are you doing back in town, Gilbert." It wasn't a question, though he desperately needed answers.

She wasn't at all phased by his sudden hostility, despite it never being aimed at her before now, it had been something she was expecting. Seeking, even, because Jamie needed something to keep her grounded, and even conflict would do.

"Why, didja miss me?" Same old teasing tone, the one that would rile him up further if it were anyone else, but somehow it being her made it all okay. She was his crutch.

He scoffed, "Dream on."

"Not even a little bit, just a tad, perhaps a smidge?"

"No _pe_." Tyler popped the p childishly, unforgivingly, and yet he had to fight back a smile at the same time.

"But I missed you."

Tyler's head whipped round so fast it was a miracle he didn't contract whiplash. He gawked at her, the magnificent being that was Jamie. With her backwards yankee cap, shortly cropped curls and baggy crewneck sweater. The knees were ripped out of her jeans, her chucks still terribly muddy, and her freckles were still in the same place. Warmth filled him as he stared at her, because this was _his_ Jamie, she hadn't changed at all.

"You're a real asshole, Jai." He scoffed, but his cheeks reddened under her gaze and she had a smile like a loaded gun.

Jamie laughed a real laugh, wholly and truthful, the kind that made him think she could shit gold. "The realest, Ty!"

"I missed you."

"I know." She didn't sound happy, her laughter came to an end and all that was left were sad eyes and the trace of a smile. "You shouldn't though."

"I know." He repeated back to her, and he knew all too well. Because someone as brilliant as Jamie could never last, they disappeared without a trace. She was no longer a human being in the expanse of his mind, rather she was an idea, an ostensibly being of something all too otherworldly with an infatuating purport of which he hadn't a clue.

She held out her fist, "Do you forgive me?"

He skinned it with his own, "Just… Always come back, okay?"

"Always." She agreed, slipping from his grasp as she made to leave once again.

"Wait, where are you going?" Tyler couldn't help but panic at seeing her go so soon, he had only just gotten her back after all.

"I've got people to go and places to meet." Jamie informed him promptly, importantly, and her playful grin told him she switched the words on purpose. As to what purpose he had no clue, but he enjoyed her meaningless play on words nevertheless.

He asked the fair question of "Where do you have to be?" It was late after all, and she owed him for bailing.

"You were my first stop. First thought best thought."

His chest swelled at her words, and he watched her slip through the window and lean off the edge precariously, an odd awe that struck him every now and then when she was around had him following her every move. Jamie Gilbert was an enigma unto herself.

"Meet me at dawn at the playing field."

And with those simple instructions she was gone.

* * *

Jamie remembered the day Rita Richardson was diagnosed with cancer. She'd been around the back, smoking cigarettes, looking entirely too natural at it and entirely too young to be doing it in the first place. Her parents didn't care to know, of course, and when Jamie came in reeking of smoke they didn't bat an eye. If anything, they probably expected it of her, Jamie amended tiredly.

"Jamie Gilbert, you put that coffin nail out right this instant!" Rita called from her kitchen window, a look all too stern adorning her rounded face.

Nodding, she let the half-smoked cylinder fall from between her slender fingers, stubbing it out with the tip of her ratty chuck taylors. She met Rita's accusative gaze head on, not an ounce of remorse to be seen. Lately Jamie had been doing a lot more than smoking cigarettes.

Softer, almost careful- something that seemed strange for a woman of her prowess, Rita spoke. "Come on inside."

Jumping the fence, she slid through the back door, dropping into a seat at the dinner table when Rita nodded to do so. Jamie thought something was amiss, Rita's plentiful face seemed haggard as of late and her age seemed to be catching up with her. She felt a pang of worry and a dreaded anticipation, not about her smoking, but more as to what the woman in front of her was hiding.

"Those things'll kill you, darl."

She recognised that there was something more to their words, an unspoken sense of transience and impending gloom. Jamie watched her friend load up the tea tray, her shaky hands settling teacups atop saucers, hot liquid spilling over the sides of the dainty porcelain.

The scent of honeysuckle and something more filled her nostrils, the unmistakeable air of something she associated with hospitals and her father's white jacket. Dead skin, steriliser and more potently, a pungent odour that Jamie was too scared to understand.

Jamie hesitated, "We all die someday, though, don't we?"

It was presumptuous of her, and all too initiative, and from the way Rita paled she knew she had hit the nail in the coffin. _But that smell_ , her mind wailed, and her chest seemed to echo with a heavy heart in that sluggish way of someone panicking. _You know that smell, Jamie!_ But Jamie refused to let her mind stray, to find the answers she was so good at figuring out.

They stared at each other from across the room, and for the first time in the Richardson household there was an unsettling silence. Rita loved to talk, she'd never shut up if she didn't have to, and the likes of Jamie and Mr. Richardson were all too willing to indulge her, the lonely yet brilliant old woman that she was.

Rita averted her eyes to the window, bracing herself against the counter as bleary blue eyes outline the pretty bouquet of sunflowers in the stained glass vase that sat on the windowsill. Sunflowers were her favourite.

"Cancer."

Lovely Rita had tried her hardest to mask the stench with her honeysuckle perfume and some sort of imported sophistication, but nothing could get rid of it. Jamie knew that smell all too well, the rot and decay of cancer, hard to

It was only one word, but Jamie understood the repercussions of such. Cancer was an ultimatum, the finality and mortality that had gone unspoken in the room. Jamie was all too aware of mortality in that moment, finer tuned as to what was going on around her. Rita was dying.

Her eyes roamed the sunlit figure in a desperate moment of self-indulgence, taking in the apparent weight loss and sickly colour of a woman dying. She felt sick, her fingers aching for another cigarette, a delightful- _cancerous_ dose of nicotine to make it all a little better.

She spoke suddenly, startling Rita from her thoughts, "How long?"

How long had she known, how long did she have left.

"Six months at most."

A week later Rita started losing hair, Jamie had been there when she came out of the bathroom crying, tufts of hair locked between wrinkly fingers.

She watched as that orange light fell sparse, breathing in the mid afternoon air and choking on it feebly as husband rocked wife back and fourth. Tearful sighs and cries, still living and treated as such but with a certain discontent.

As the amber lit hues faded from the sky, settling into a murky indigo that reminded Jamie all too much of bruises, she brought the razor up to her curls. She was watching her reflection in some kind of trance, enamoured with the sickly pale kid staring back at her with an all consuming grey. Her eyes strayed to her own bruises, from rough housing and sport, the kind she used to take pride in but now simply craved the ache. Bad people deserved to ache, she thought decisively, orbs flitting back to her face. Rita didn't deserve it though.

 _C'mon, Jamie, one swipe and there's no going back, you can do it._

With a steady hand and a heavy heart black curls filled the sink.

Jamie finished with a smile, evening out her new buzzcut. Her smile faltered when she thought of her parents, because if her Mom hated her hair short then she sure as hell wouldn't like this. And her Dad, well, the thought of him was enough to elect a scowl from her at the best of times.

"You did this for Rita, kid." She told the person in the mirror boldly, leaning forward as if she were sharing a secret, the kind of thing that got people hooked on every word, "You did good."

She bagged her hair and threw it in the trash, deciding to forgo the cap in favour of showing Rita straight away. Childish anticipation and a striking daringness shot through her veins as she took the stairs three steps at a time, landing with an almighty _thud!_ Hearing her Dad complaining about the noise in the kitchen she considered making a beeline for the front door, but it was too late.

The kitchen door swung open, followed shortly by her Mother's indignant gasp, glass shattering and a pain ridden howl. At the sight of her eldest daughter sporting her crisp new number one haircut, courtesy of none other than Grayson's electric razor, the one she had bought him for christmas that he had yet to use, Miranda had dropped her coffee. Grayson only managed to sneak a peek at her before boiling coffee pooled at his crotch and spilled over his lap, yowling as wet fabric clung to his terribly burnt and clammy skin. Jamie took it as an opportunity to make a run for it, racing past Elena and Jeremy who watched on from the staircase.

Lainey yelped, "Jamie's bald!" and Jeremy's laughter followed her all the way outside, that managed to put a smile on her face.

When Rita opened the door she let out a gasp, though it sounded more like a wheeze in her weakened state, staring down at the little girl who looked too damn smug with herself.

Over coffee they laughed, "What happened next? Go on, go on!" Rita had this way of goading you on like the minx she was, and she took enjoyment out of Jamie's numerous tales and misadventures.

"Well, Mom dropped her coffee all over Dad's lap, and he let out this scream- You should have heard it!" Jamie laughed, looking her age for once.

But then her smile fell, and she stared at Rita sadly. "I don't want you to die." She let out in an anguished moan, just an exhale of breath and nothing more, and the tears brimming at her eyes fell as she spoke.

"I know, doll, but there's nothing to be done." Rita's soft eyes turned stern as she spoke, "I'm going to die whether anyone wants me to or not."

"You think I don't know that?" Jamie demanded, her grief giving way to anger at the thought of how childish she was being, her words seeming bigger than her body as she choked them out in a strangely shaky facsimile. "That doesn't change the fact that I don't want you to leave!"

"Oh, Jamie." Rita sighed helplessly, holding on tight to the little girl who fell into her ever evasive embrace.

* * *

Rita Richardson didn't get her six months, despite what the doctor's said. Instead she died three weeks after being diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer.

That night Jamie cried silent tears into her pillow, and in that moment she felt a lot older than her pesky years of age, but mostly she just felt tired, and that gut wrenching helplessness that had seemingly settled over her like a warm blanket in those last few weeks. It felt like giving up, she had realised, because in a way she had already come to accept her dear friend's impending death. And she would be dead by morning come, of that she was sure of. She just knew somehow in that way of hers, and her putting off sleep was her own desperate and selfish attempt at trying to delay the inevitable.

But eventually sleep came, she had been too tired to keep her eyes open, and in her body's own way it was a mercy.

That night she dreamt of Rita Richardson walking away from her, a field of wild sunflowers for as far as the eye could see- and Rita in her Sunday best was getting further and further away from her as the sun trickled upon the horizon. Sunflowers were her favourite.

That morning, at 5:38am, as the sun arose clumsily in the distance, Rita Richardson took her last shuddering breath. Her lungs filled with air, exhaled, and her heart spluttered before giving out, and then she stilled.

* * *

 **(AU: Cheers for reviewing and all that. Life's a little bit hectic at the moment, but then again it always is around these parts. Merry Christmas and here's too the New Year. The next chapter will be post 2016, which is oddly fitting because it's the end of the pre-pilot's. Yes, the OFFICIAL end of Jamie's childhood, and it's certainly been a wild ride.)**


	5. Chapter 5, Better Days

**Sink Or Swim | Chapter Five, Better Days**

 _Cold, dark sea_

 _Wrapping its arms around me,_

 _Pulling me down to the deep._

 _All eyes on me._

Sinking Man, Of Monsters & Men

* * *

The first time she had seen William Richardson since the funeral of his late wife was also the last. She had seen the movers truck from her spot on the front porch, but she hadn't dared to make a move until everything was put away and the truck was getting ready to leave for good.

"What, not gonna say you're sorry? Give your condolences to the silly old man missing his wife?!" He demanded bitterly, tears running down his aged face, a hardened face that spoke of a working man.

She had come to say goodbye. It had been a long time coming, but she'd put it off for as long as she could. She still remembered the funeral. The flowers so breathlike and deathlike sitting upon her coffin, it was a smothering collection of colours and scents that invaded every sense you had to your name. Only two bunches of sunflowers sat in that pile, only Jamie and William had remembered. That was sadder than the funeral.

"No." Jamie spoke, "you don't need my pity, don't want it neither." If he noticed that she was grammatically incorrect he didn't say anything about it. He'd always been a stickler for the rules, and spoken language was no exception, but he didn't have the heart for it anymore.

He nodded absently, pushing his tears away forcefully with a shaky fist and ragged breath. "She was a goodun, my Rita."

"Yeah." Jamie agreed quietly, frowning at the ground, "A real doll."

"But none of that matters anymore, she's gone now."

"S'pose so." She murmured.

"You're okay, kid."

"You too, old man."

* * *

Mountain lion, Jamie supposed, probably came by way of Georgia or the like. It was entirely probable, which didn't help her any in making sense of the dread she felt. She realised she didn't believe it, despite it being rational, and she knew it was one of those things where the answer was irrational.

Grayson had been late collecting Jamie from the airport. Someone was dead. An animal attack they said. Enzo was gone.

" _It does all seem rather strange, doesn't it? It's enough to make anyone curious. Well, maybe not the idiots in this town, but you've got a brain at least. Use it."_

Those were the facts. The truth that Elena was so damn fond of and what made Jamie want to curl up and die. And Grayson faced it all with a smile.

" _He's not exactly subtle, is he?"_ Jamie barely ignored the running commentary, but she subconsciously made note of everything it said.

Enzo's sudden or not so sudden disappearance was a kick to the teeth, but it was Rita's death took the ground from beneath her feet. She was constantly tripping over memories and emotions, living in a state of confusion. All of this reoccured in her dreams, the voice- a different voice entirely that still called for a proper title and acknowledgement- goading her on through it all.

" _You live such a frivolous lifestyle."_ It was decisively male, one of the figures shrouded in dark, hidden in the shade of her mind. " _What happened to the little girl who used to draw and study whatever caught her eye?"_

Jamie snorted derisively, "She grew up and lost things, that's what."

" _You're sad."_ He spoke factually, sounding intrigued and just a little bit dispirited by the revelation. " _Is life really all so bad?"_

"Sometimes." She mused, strangely cautious and pensive. It wasn't an easy topic, and this wasn't like all the other times she had talked to him in her dreams. He was the strangest stranger tinged in mystery, embedded only in the deepest corners of her cerebrum where he wallowed in something that Jamie couldn't even begin to comprehend. "But I'm holding out on the hope that it'll get better, there are good days after all, even if it seems all bad."

Jamie had long ago decided that this voice, or rather person, was nothing more than the personification of a certain part of her subconscious, a part of her. But sometimes she couldn't shake the feeling that she was lying to herself, that she knew it wasn't her, it was something else entirely that spoke to her in her dreams. Her only solace was that it was better than drowning, though sometimes she doubted even that.

Shaking off those thoughts, Jamie went on. "That's one of the biggest flaws in human nature, the self pity that makes you overlook the good things, even the simple things. It's a disease, one that doesn't let up no matter how hard you try."

" _And have you been trying?"_

"No. But I think I might be ready to. Soon, any day now even."

He hummed in response, a pretty sound tinged in a singsong baritone. Were subconscious thoughts always this attractive to the owner? Somehow she doubted it, but the implications of questioning her mental health was simply too overbearing to consider at the moment. Or ever. It was only a dream, she amended that it was okay to run away from problems in a dream, it wouldn't affect her in the long run- she wouldn't remember the voice or the details of their conversation when she woke up, so questions went unasked and answers remained insignificant.

"I'd give anything to be back in the land of the living."

Jamie didn't know it was possible to feel so tired in a dream, so drained, and yet when the voice spoke like that she couldn't refute that he was something more than her subconscious. Instead of wallowing in it, she simply moved closer to the warmth it emitted, there was no point chasing answers she didn't really want.

Ignorance was bliss, after all.

* * *

It was the first snow day of the year, in march for crying out loud, but Jamie felt the small pinpricks of anticipation, the buzzing feeling left over from childish ideals. She loved the snow. All remnants of her dream and the voice banished when she caught sight of the white world waiting outside her window.

Her mind was already alight with plans and ideas, she'd get the sled out of the shed, haul Jeremy out of bed. She'd clear the drive for when her Dad inevitably got called into work, call up Ty for a snowball fight. Matt would be up for an old fashioned snow fort contest, the best defence was a good offence. Ammo, patches of ice, sleds on the hilltops, throwing themselves down slopes. Jamie could see it, could feel it in her bones. Today was gonna be a good one, one for the history books alright- she was gonna teach the kids on the block what a real snow war looked like.

And then, out of nowhere, it occurred to her that she should check up on Rita, the cold made her hip play up. She stopped walking, her smile crashing down as she realised, not for the first time, that Rita was dead. _Dead people don't get cold, kiddo, they're already as cold as can be._

Jamie felt like crying, a desperate, needy urge that clawed at her eyes and made her feel so goddamn small. But she wasn't feeling indulgent today, fighting the sting of tears back vehemently, she didn't feel much of anything anymore.

 _The only place you'll be visiting old Rita is the Mystic Falls cemetery, a gravestone not a person, and don't you forget it!_ Jamie wanted to cry out that she couldn't forget, how could she possibly forget, but the fact of the matter is that she _did_ forget. Only for a moment, but in that moment Rita was alive, at least in her mind. And now she just felt lost. It had been the first time she had forgotten, the absence was a constant thing and somehow the anticipation and excitement of the snow made her lose sight.

Jamie wished she could forget, wished she had never met Rita at all, that she had just been another coffin dodger with their picture in the local papers. _She couldn't dodge the coffin for long though, hey kid? Couldn't even keep her due, croaked it before the good ole Doc's timeline was up!_

She didn't realise her hands had ended up latched in her hair, it had grown back a while ago, or the way her fingers threaded through the locks and gripped on for dear life. Her scalp burned, her nails dug into her delicate skin as she pulled and tugged, and she realised her arms were shaking with the strain from how hard she was pulling, her muscles taut and pulled tight.

It was the voice, that fucking voice that made her want to blow her brains out. Not the one from her dreams, of that she was sure (not that she was sure of much nowadays), but a voice all the same. It wouldn't be so damned smug after it bit the bullet, now would it?

 _You mean like good ole Rita did?_

"Fuck you." She spoke aloud, disgusted by just how weak her voice was. It was so small and shallow, like her breathing, and despite it snowing she felt clammy and hot under her t-shirt.

Her hands dropped to her sides, and she took in a shaky breath, trying to get it under control. What she was trying to control was lost on her, but she knew she had to get herself together.

 _What's the matter, doll? Next you'll be forgetting about Enzo!_

"No. I didn't forget. I'll never forget!" Jamie muttered, "I can't forget, memories are all I've got."

It was like a chant, one she spoke many a time before bed, what she said in the mornings, her response to the voice. Jamie couldn't forget, she wouldn't, those people mattered to her. Her hands tugged at the neck of her t-shirt, pulling and tugging desperately, trying to breathe again.

 _Then why didn't you help Enzo escape, huh? That's the real kick in the teeth, ain't it? You could have saved him._

Jamie scoffed, shuffling into the bathroom. Like hell she could.

She stared at her reflection, the pale girl with the freckled skin and the bags under her eyes. The sight was a whole lot scarier than drowning, in Jamie's opinion. With a shuddering breath she turned the tap and splashed cold water onto her face, patting her cheeks a little forcefully, trying to cohere a bit of colour back into her pale facade.

Misery builds character, and misery loves company. And the voice was just that.

Rubbing the sleep from her damp eyes and frozen skin, she tried patting her hair down with little success. Her hat would cover it anyway.

She couldn't save Enzo, or Rita for that matter, and she couldn't save herself. No, the best thing for it was self medication. She just needed a spliff, maybe a line or two, that'd sort her out. That would sort it all out.

Somewhere that same voice was laughing, but she ignored it, she ignored it for the sake of sanity. And she ignored it because she knew it was right. She had failed Enzo, and now she would spend the rest of her life trying to breathe in the shallow depths.

She doesn't remember, but the voices are there. When she's high they talk to her, they seem clearer- crisp, their words comfort her when nothing else can. They know about Rita, and Enzo too. She doesn't know how, if she told them or if they are all knowing, but she holds onto them anyway.

But sometimes the voices get angry. Sometimes they lash out. Jamie thinks they're just as confused as she is, and that's okay. It's okay to be angry, and it's okay to not understand. Jamie knew that better than anyone. That didn't stop her from hating them just a little.

* * *

Things changed after Rita bit the bullet, and Jamie watched those unaffected with a certain awe and contempt. She found that time didn't stop, not even for someone as great as Rita, so in Jamie's mind there was no hope for herself. If possible, she felt like she was sinking further, her insides ready to implode at any given moment, accompanied by the constant ache in her chest and an irrefutable yet irrational sadness that tinged the spectrum.

Jamie learnt a lot that year, the kind of stuff that wasn't in those books she was so infatuated with. She learnt about grief.

Rita Richardson was dead, she wasn't a ghost and she wasn't haunting anyone, she was in the ground and that's where she'd stay. Jamie was the ghost, the after-effects of death, the manifestation of the dead. They were always on her mind, and she couldn't seem to let go.

She kept telling herself to hang in there, that summer was on the way and she'd see Billy and Roscoe again, but she only sank further. It hadn't only been Rita she'd lost, but Enzo too.

That very same day she came back she booted it to the store, down to the cellar where his ominous presence seemed to spark to life. But Enzo wasn't there.

The strained relationship at best between Father and Daughter diminished further. He had sent her away, knowing what she knew, and getting rid of all evidence with a smug grin that made Jamie want to hurt him just like he had hurt her. Sometimes she wished she'd had the guts to set Enzo free, sometimes she dreamed of watching him kill her Father and not lifting a finger to stop it. Those thoughts kept Jamie sane.

At home Jamie became the invisible man, her slender figure shrouded by shadows and gloom as she hid away. Occasionally she would sit on the front steps of the porch like she used to, but it seemed too bright but dull all at the same time. Jeremy would try and get her to talk, but words seemed an impossible feat, and so he gave up and let her be. That's all she wanted, just for everyone to let her be. When she didn't show up to anything Tyler would trek to her house and find her sitting on the same step each time, he wouldn't say anything, just nod and sit on the next step. And as winter rolled in he was still more than willing to take the step beneath her, be it rain or sunshine. They spent a lot of days like that, soaked to the bone on the porch steps until it got too cold to grin and bear it. And if it weren't for Tyler being there she wouldn't have bothered going inside, she would have stayed out day and night in the rain if she could. It reminded her that even though she had lost Rita and Enzo she still had him. She would tell herself over and over that that was enough, but suddenly she wasn't so sure anymore.

It was on the days when she wasn't on the porch that one could find her in the backyard, smoking cigarettes and shooting empty tin cans with a BB gun. It was her refuge from refuge. She'd stare at those giant yellow Tonka trucks that had made her so happy as a kid, a digger and dumper marred by clods of mud and grass stains, and then she'd go back to shooting some more. It was her own personal brand of therapy, but when that didn't work she'd soon latch on to another escape; never permanent, only brief, much like life.

She found another retreat in the form of a relationship. It didn't last long, he was named Jude after the Beatles song, and he was a military brat in the form of a poetry rambling pacifist. Tyler thought he was pretentious, a wannabe heading nowhere, and he was right. She didn't mind though, not really, if anything she loved all the big words and how distinguished he thought he was. And like all great poets he spoke of love and war and rebellion, he took a liking to calling her his muse. She lit his first cigarette, because all teen angst is in need of nicotine- she said it made him look more sophisticated, he thought sophistication came with age and revelled in the barely six month age gap between them. He ate her words right up without question or complaint, preferring to speak of philosophy or at least his own queer rebrand.

It ended when after a couple of months, Jamie didn't mind. He moved away, she stayed in place, and all was right in the world.

Tyler spent his time with Jamie greedily, with a sense of entitlement only an only child could lay claim to. He robbed the hours she once spent with her boyfriend, christening them as his own. She didn't mind that either, indulging her best friend with a grace and cool amusement that was a little beyond her years. If anything they became even more inseparable than in their youth, once thought of as an impossible feat and yet they had somehow managed.

Eventually sadness lost its charm, and Jamie found herself seeking out something new. She went to every party there was, drinking greedily in a way in which only tortured youth could and falling down the rabbit hole of petty drug use. It kept the bad thoughts away, if only for a while. And that suited Jamie just fine. She wasn't looking to forget altogether, just momentarily.

Jamie had learnt early on how women were with drink. Miranda had always been partial to wine, she used to buy cork screw caps as an excuse to drink it all, because there was no use wasting good wine she'd always say. She would natter on, about the past mostly, the future on occasion. Better days, she'd call them, and here's to better days she'd then say, like a prayer, desperate and needy tinged with dissatisfaction.

There were no better days, and Miranda kept drinking.

So when Jamie was drinking she never spoke of better days. She didn't reminisce, there was no ambitious speeches about the future, Jamie just laughed instead.

The present was what mattered, and she meant to make the most of it. But the mantra of Better Days meant something to her, and she held onto it in secret.

She couldn't remember who had passed her the first joint, and if she were being honest she didn't even like weed, but it made things slow down, and in life that was a rare thing to find. It soon became normal for her and Tyler to spend their nights smoking whatever weed they had on them and eating dry cereal from the box with their bare hands, an idle hunger eating away at them from the inside out. She would have liked to say it made her feel better about her train wreck of a life, but it didn't. It didn't help at all. It felt as if she were constantly drowning 24/7, but at least when she was high it was more of a floating sensation than anything. It was when the high wore off that she felt like there were bricks at her ankles, weighing her down tenfold.

Tyler and Jamie rarely paid for weed, but when they did everyone got a piece. It wasn't like they were poor or nothing, but either of them liked Buddy, the local dealer. He'd leer at Jamie and try his hand at getting paid in kind, and even before he started doing that Tyler had felt like punching his damn face in.

So her and Tyler went to smoke spliffs in the little bunker they had made as kids at the Lockwood estate, or at the playing field near the Salvatore Boarding house where Jamie always got the feeling that Zach was watching.

That was another thing, the sudden friendship between her and Zach that came about unknowingly. It seemed as if they were constantly bumping into each other, maybe it was because they were the only ones in Mystic Falls to walk the streets at all hours of the night, and so it only seemed logical that they became friends. Usually inebriated, the two would sit on random benches and smoke cigarettes by the pack, something that Zach picked up on when he first saw her again, after Rita's funeral. Jamie wondered if he knew it was the packet he had left behind that got her hooked, that he had inadvertently handed her the first cigarette.

She didn't bring it up though, it felt somewhat akin to an accusation and Jamie didn't blame Zach at all. Like Jamie was to Jude, much like Jesus to his disciples, Zach was her saviour in the secular age in the form of nicotine.

Eventually even alcohol and drugs dulled, draining of colour and quickly succumbing to the endless shades of grey, and Jamie started to realise that Mystic Falls was a prison. Of course, she knew just how small the town really was, but it wasn't until she felt herself spiralling that she figured out just how trapped she really was. The stripes of her uniform were the black and white opinions and the judgement of her peers, the ball and chain was state education and death row was her Father's narrowed eyes, empty and vague. She vowed to get out, one day, soon, but until then she found herself exploring the next town over.

It was nothing special, small towns rarely were, but no one knew her name.

With her newfound freedom Jamie got a job at a family run business, a local Italian restaurant that paid homage to traditional italian cuisine. Her boss, Vinny, ran the joint, and he just so happened to have a soft spot for Jamie. His son, a tall boy made up of gangly limbs and outrageous words, taught her how to swear in Italian and would steal the alcohol from his Dad's bar for them to share in the alley.

She met her second boyfriend through him, in that very same alley even, his name was Johnny and he was older than her and drank whiskey.

"C'mon, Jai, show some pity for crying out loud!" Angelo complained loudly, and she could just imagine Vinny giving him a good old whack over the head for whining so much. "My girlfriend broke up with me, the least you could do is share the bottle."

"You fucked her best friend, you don't deserve pity booze." Jamie pointed out, the neck of the bottle pointed his way accusingly, though she wasn't one to judge. So what, Angelo slept around regardless of his relationship status, the bird he'd been dating started seeing him while he was already in a relationship, now the tables had turned, a full circle kinda deal. She'd been the one to think he would never do it to her, thought she was different, yada yada yada, blah blah blah, she's entirely blameless, of course, the real victim in this terrible situation. Jamie called bull, plead the fifth, you get the idea. No crime or misdeed is truly blameless, and in this case there was no victim, because neither were innocent.

He held his hand to his heart, batting those eyelashes that got him all the girls, "You, my dear friend, are cold hearted."

"And I'm also the one holding a bottle of jack. It pays off."

That bottle of Jack Daniels paired off with a newly single friend is what led to the following events, the build up to the climax- like in those movies he loved so much.

He'd been walking down the alley, mechanic boots kicking up dirt and the frayed ends of his jeans dragging in the dust. She couldn't remember much about that night, but she did remember the way his icy blue eyes peered down at her, long lashes shadowed against his high cheekbones and the way his jaw line was so defined in the overhead lighting.

"What are you looking at?" Jamie spat out a glob of blood thickened with saliva, her teeth bright red in a mocking bloody smile.

She couldn't remember the fight, but she did remember the way his lips twitched up into a smile despite the lit cigarette hanging out his mouth.

The next day she took the walk of shame, forgoing her home in favour of filling Tyler in.

"That's a bit backwards." Tyler noted, scowling slightly from behind the bar in his Dad's study. He poured their drinks with a steady hand, more importantly a generous hand. Unperturbed by her lack of argument, he went on to clarify, "Fucking someone and then asking them out on a date."

Jamie didn't even look up from the couch she was sprawled out on, head lulling off the seat and legs hanging over the back. "Maybe I'm just that good in bed, Ty, I don't know. But he's not so bad, he just does things his own way."

"Backwards." He stressed, sounding put out by her nonchalance, moving from behind the bar without spilling any drink. It was the good stuff after all, it had to be to be locked away in his Dad's study.

The blood was getting to her head, everything was spinning and she felt a particularly strong surge of dizziness take over. She made no move to sit upright. "At least I won't be bored."

"Oh, I'm sorry, am I boring you?" Tyler shot back, kicking the coffee table idly, looking sulky.

Jamie chuckled, "You could never bore me, just annoy me."

"Shut up."

"I don't shu-"

"Not a chance in hell, Gilbert, no singing!"

"-t up, I grow up, and when I look at you I throw up!"

He groaned, "You're a mess, you know that right?"

"Certainly, but I think I'll wait a while before sorting myself out." She laughed void of humour, "don't worry, Tyler, just sit back and enjoy the show."

He nodded, numb to the world with a drink in his hand. "I can wait, I mean, it's not like I'm any better off."

"You're not your Dad, you're not the drinking or the drugs either. That's on me, man." Jamie spoke soundly, flashing him a weak smile. "One day you'll see. Just you wait."

"You're just high and sad." Tyler insisted, his fingers threaded through her short locks. "You'll feel better after you come down again."

"The come downs the worst bit."

"You do this too much, you know." He spoke, "Get high." But he didn't need to elaborate, she knew she smoked too much dope. Even when the world was upside down.

Johnny used to be the boy that made girls cry, the good looking one who was always in control of everything bar his life. He was a hot mess of dominance, spontaneity and overwhelming control. He didn't feel anything for the girls he hooked up with, their tears didn't affect his demeanour one bit, but then Jamie- she had told him that was her name, not Jai- came along.

She was his girl by name and name only, he knew, because girls like Jamie, as hard as they were to come by, were no one's. So he loved her, he accepted his feelings with a strange reluctance but accepted them all the same, but he knew she would never be his. Not really, not the way he was hers.

Now she was laid down on his bedroom floor, dope fuelled gaze staring into the subliminal nothingness of the ceiling. He remembered when she used to laugh after smoking a joint, back when they first met when she'd smile lovingly at him, look upon him like he was something else. Bigger, maybe, or important, something, just something. Johnny missed it. He missed her.

Jamie was missing someone too, he could tell, she had a look about her. Who she was missing was a mystery, and she wouldn't tell him. She didn't tell him anything, not when it came to the important stuff, the stuff you share with someone you love.

He knew she didn't love him, and he knew how shit she felt for not loving him. But he loved her.

Jamie was drowning, but Johnny was too. Somehow, someway, that made it better.

* * *

Johnny was waiting for her in the booth, drinking his watered down coffee but facing it with a smile because he was with her. He was waiting, always waiting with a smile but waiting all the same, and not just for her to leave the bathroom. He loved her, though he was sparse to admit it, but it came out every now and then. When she was laying beside him in his bed, the way he stared at her while they walked down the street, how his grip on her hand got that little bit too tight when someone else looked, and when he brushed the stray locks from her face with a touch that was too gentle for a man like him. And he was a man, she knew, there was nothing boyish about him. She supposed she loved him, as much as she was capable of at that given moment, and maybe if he had found her when she was in a different state of mind, at a better time, she would have let herself love him. But he was here now, and she promised herself that she'd leave before she got in too deep.

"Here's to better days, Jamie." She let out, gripping the sink harder, not noticing the way her knuckles went white and how she rocked on her heels. It was the girl in the mirror that caught her attention, the paleness to her skin and the way her eyes moved about anxiously. The white powder was lined up neatly, straight and crisp and a blinding ivory against the grime and grayness of the tiles. "Here's to better days."

It shot up her nose, a burst of lemon, it was the good stuff alright. All of a sudden the bathroom seemed to burst with colour, everything was finer, the lines sharper, and life was brighter. She knew she'd want another line in a minute or two, she always did. This time when she looked in the mirror the girl seemed normal, maybe even happy. Jamie couldn't relate.

One line later she was sauntering out of the bathroom and into the dingy diner, an easy going smile adorning her face.

Johnny's eyes fell over her, a warmth to his cold blue gaze that could only be attributed to something as grand as love. He liked the way the sunlight warmed her skin, how his flannel fell off her shoulder and reached past her thighs, her own shirt showcasing just a sliver of skin. She didn't wear that ratty Yankee's cap so much anymore, and her hair was getting longer, she either didn't notice or she didn't care.

She fell into the leather seat opposite him, grey eyes hooded in an unapologetic manner. Jamie wouldn't apologise for making him wait, she wouldn't apologise for anything.

"You've got the bluest eyes I've ever seen, Johnny."

He smiled. She said that a lot, while they were walking so close their skin would touch, when they were sat atop the hood of his car smoking cigarettes with the radio on, as she traced his tattoo's with a wandering touch, after sex- There was always some comment about how blue his eyes were.

From across the table he reached out, grasping her hand in his own, and he led her away from the booth and out the door.

He didn't understand the words, but they made him happy nonetheless.

Of course, he acknowledged that she was high, somewhere in the back of his mind, but it didn't fully comprehend. Not really. He was too lost in her to focus, to accept it, and maybe he didn't really care, it wasn't like he was clean himself.

Jamie knew, even in her drug infused daze, the he didn't understand the significance behind those words. She couldn't tell him that she loved him, and that was possibly the closest she would ever get, her own little secret. He really did have the bluest eyes, after all.

It was that time of day where the sun was positioned just right, her gaze rested on the view from the car window, and she watched the silvery blue to gold gradient of the windows of houses passing by. The sunlight reflecting off the coating, brilliantly vivid hues that left her in a daze in her drugged state.

"Where too?"

"Drop me off at the cemetery."

She watched as he drove away, knowing that he was watching her in the rearview mirror. Somehow, Jamie always knew.

It was when he turned the corner down the street that she began to wander through the mass maze of graves, she didn't have to watch her step anymore, her route and destination was pre-set.

 _In loving memory of Ruth Richardson_

"I don't like it now you're dead." She spoke, bleary eyed and haggard hearted. Coming down made her sadder than ever, sadder than snorting coke in the rundown, piss stained bathroom of some diner the next town over. But everything looked like a palace after a line, two for good measure.

If Rita could only see her now...

It was much later when he found her bleeding in the kitchen, it was morning now and she had just come home. It reminded her of Billy, and how he held her as she cried. Her Father would do no such thing, she knew. Sometimes it felt like he was dissecting her with his eyes, like he so literally did with Enzo, and he'd read into her words like she read his reports. Jamie knew, and he knew that she knew, and thus she was a loose end, demoted from daughter to pain in the ass.

She didn't know if her nose was bleeding because of the fight or the cocaine, either was a viable option and both of them would undoubtedly get her arrested. Jamie would have snorted if it weren't for her nose pissing out blood and her Dad's judgemental eyes following her every move. Maybe she should have stayed out, she'd been gone for two days already but a few more wouldn't hurt, the truth was she didn't feel comfortable at home. She couldn't stay in the same house as him, it just made her hate him more.

Realising that her Dad was still staring, she raised her head a little with a wry smile. "The bleeding's incidental, by the way."

The clock was ticking in that incessant way that was entirely of it's own. It masked the silence, simultaneously making it louder and all the more apparent, the antithesis of it was rather poetic in Jamie's opinion. She would only ever think in such away when she was under the influence, everything gained a metrical quality when she was high. That was part of the appeal, she supposed. The bleeding was just the price to pay, and everything came with a price.

Happiness was at the expense of ignorance, and Jamie couldn't afford such luxury. Jamie couldn't afford shit anymore, not when it really mattered. She couldn't afford her Father's love or her Mother's pride. But the drugs came cheap and alcohol kept on pouring, right into her nicotine stained hands. The bruises and blood were freely given, her smile a hard thing to come by and her honesty tinged with lies.

"You look terrible."

"Talk about adding insult to injury." Jamie jeered, but her grin was weak and her words fell flat. It wasn't a laughing matter, and she wasn't in the mood to try and relieve the tension, it would have been wasted on him anyway. No sense of humour, her ole dad.

 _It's not funny if your heart ain't in it, sweetheart. You're the real laughing stock here, trying to act the joker and all._

If Grayson noticed her unease he didn't voice his concerns, or maybe he did notice but just didn't care. She wasn't Daddy's little girl anymore, hell she wasn't even worth his time of day anymore. And somewhere along the line she had become okay with it all, and that scared her. She seemed to always be scared nowadays.

* * *

 ****

 ** _"Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family."_** **Ewan Mcgregors voice rang out as clear as it could over the electrical buzz of the broke up DVD player sat atop a beat up television set on Johnny's floor. Jamie paid rapt attention to Mark Renton's opening monologue with a joint hanging out of her mouth and a cold bottle of beer in her hand, the pricks of perspiration running down the glass and trickling down her skin, it was uncomfortable but she wasn't moving for shit, she wasn't doing anything anymore.**

 ** _"Choose life… But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?"  
_** **  
Johnny loved Danny Boyle movies, like** ** _28 Days Later_** **and** ** _Slumdog Millionaire_** **, and other British movies where they seemed to be speaking every other language but plain English. Tyler usually complained during those times, he couldn't understand what they were saying or the words they used, couldn't understand anything really and that made watching those movies redundant. But Jamie liked them, could see the appeal in the cynic and brash nature. She felt it, understood it in a strange sense, and America didn't cut it anymore, because America liked to pretend it was all fine and dandy on the dock front.**

 **So they sat on the floor, by now there were dents in the carpet from where they sat- always in the same place, for hours on end, watching movies and talking shit, drinking beer and taking drugs. Jamie understood Mark Renton, she knew many Spud's and Sick Boy's, a few Begbies and the odd Tommy. It simply clicked, and that was especially sad when you were watching a movie about heroin.**

Later that night, after Tyler and whoever else came by were long gone, Johnny was a man thoroughly spent, his idle gaze resting on the contradictory girl laying next to him. He was tired but couldn't sleep, satisfied but discontented, at ease but troubled- all at the same time, all because of her.

It was hard to explain, at least in his jumbled mind, the after effects of great sex taking over and leaving him stupefied the way it only could with men. He bet she was still as sharp as ever, if she were awake. He thought of her contradictory because she made him feel something too complex to make any sense of it. Thoughts of her kept him awake, even when she was by his side and he could hardly keep his eyes open. Sex left him deeply satisfied, but something was missing he knew, and he supposed it was unrequited feelings. He was haunted by her not loving him at all, but content with her laying next to him in bed. It was all terribly confusing.

That morning Jamie finally broke. She had no direction, no time, she didn't have much of anything left. She just stared into nothingness, and it scared people. Shit, she was scared too.

She was trying to numb things. Trying to feel something and feel nothing at all. Johnny was her drug, the one that trumped all the other shit she had been taking, because he was by far the most effective. By far the most destructive. Of course, he loved her, and she loved him too, not that he knew it. He thought she hated herself for not loving him at all, but he wouldn't leave. For a while he'd stopped asking questions, gave her a relief. But inevitably the questions began to arise once again, and the further he pushed the more she pulled away.

It was hurting him, she could tell, and suddenly her favourite dose lost its touch. She left him, with her name inked on his arm and the cd's they had shared- all their favourite songs playing in a haunting elegy. He said he loved her, she said she was leaving him. They fought, he grabbed her, immediately let go, stumbling over apologies and desperate pleas of love and promises. He could change, he said, but that wasn't the problem. She was, but he was too blind to see it and too deaf to hear a word of it. Jamie left him with a searing kiss and an indigo bruise adorning her arm, she loved it more than all the jewellery in the world.

* * *

It was some kind of a family shindig, no special event or anything, they just thought it'd be kinda nice to sit down as a family again.

They talked about the usual stuff, mundane topics deemed safe, Jamie didn't have very much input there. It wasn't surprising when the Mystic Falls pageant was brought up, somehow the conversation always seemed to come back to something founding family related. Zach would have rolled his eyes, Jamie would have too except she'd smoked too much spliff before dinner.

She may have been high, but she wasn't blind. Jamie saw the way her Mom's eyes lit up at the thought of the pageant, the way she seemed so much younger, her skin glowing and her smile wide.

In a rare moment of compliance she uttered, "Where do I sign up?"

She liked to think she was intelligent enough to look beyond materialistic and idealistic values, to place her efforts into something meaningful. But recently all she'd been doing is getting high and drinking her body weight in alcohol. Nothing had any meaning or sentiment behind it anymore. So if this pageant would make her mom happy she'd participate.

"Really, Jamie?" Her mother spoke in a breath, her voice strangely light and airy. She hadn't heard her mom talk to her like that in years.

"Sure. But you'll have to help me get ready. Elena too. It could be fun."

Miranda thought that her daughter, the nefarious tomboy whom she hadn't been able to force into a dress ever since her legs were strong enough to kick it away, was finally growing up.

Elena, however, saw it for what it was.

"Jamie, are you high?!" Elena demanded, her fingers digging into her twins shoulders, breaking skin.

It was after dinner now, and her Parents were still safely tucked away in the kitchen, completely unaware just like always.

Cloudy eyes met hers, and Jamie gave her an achingly sad smile that only she seemed able to give. "S'pose I am, what of it?"

"You need to stop doing this to yourself!"

Her smile dropped, and she shook her head feverently and wildly like only a madman on drugs could do. "Don't act like you care, Lainey! It's not like this is the first time, it's been going on for years now, and no one cared then."

"I didn't-"

"Course you knew, everyone knew. I came home high nearly everyday, stinking of it, and none of you said a word." Jamie shook herself free from her sister's grip, her body moving in a harsh and sudden jumble, more animal like and unpredictable than something human.

Jamie reached the front door first, and she was already down the porch steps by the time Elena had managed to scurry out after her.

"Screw you! You don't get to choose when you care, Lainey!" Jamie called, "that's not how family works, okay?"

Elena protested, "I do care-"

"Not enough, apparently." Jamie cut her off with ease.

She was walking away from her, and Elena called her name in a plea only for Jamie to pause.

"Face it, kiddo, this family's broken and I don't think I care enough to fix it. Not now, not anymore." And then she carried on walking.

This was the first time Jamie had walked away from her twin.

Jamie felt the overwhelming, inexplicable need to get drunk. But it was always the time when you really needed to that meant you couldn't afford to. She couldn't go out and get drunk tonight, Miranda was already half way through a bottle of Chardonnay and showed no signs of stopping, so Jamie supposed she'd be the one to collect Aunt Jenna tomorrow morning. Not that she minded much, Jenna was alright, it just meant she couldn't drink. But god did she need one. She could still hear Grayson pacing in his study upstairs, Elena talking on the phone with Bonnie- about Caroline, 'that bitch', though Jamie supposed the real bitch was the one backstabbing her best friend. Jeremy though, well he was the only one who didn't make her crave a drink. He had his headphones in while he finished a drawing, she'd ask him about it later. This was a normal day, needing a drink was normal too, and somewhere along the line Jamie began to refer to her parents as Miranda and Grayson. She didn't want to acknowledge it though, didn't want to read into it- the truth was damning, just ask anybody.

She decided she'd call Tyler when she eventually made it back home. For now she just wanted to be alone.

Miranda woke up the next day with a splitting headache and a wide smile, the memory of last night's conversation still clear in her mind. She was surprised to find that Jenna was already here, even more surprised to find that it was already four in the afternoon, but happy nonetheless.

"We broke up." Jamie mentioned offhandedly, leaning against the counter without a care in the world.

"You mean you broke up with him." Jenna implored with a sly smile and a wink.

Miranda watched the two, a nagging feeling at the pit of her stomach. It was guilt, she supposed. The fact that they broke up was news to her, and with Jamie going away so soon- like she's been doing every year since the summer you sent her away, a small voice in the back of her mind put in snidely- she felt estranged from her eldest daughter. It was like she was watching Jamie grow up from the sidelines with little to no communication, like she had been doing for years now, and yet she had been too caught up in Elena and her insecurities towards Matt. Too caught up in the little things, irrelevant shit that didn't mean much, and it took Grayson's sudden harshness towards Jamie for her to realise it.

"Jamie, you should go to the bonfire tonight with your friends." Miranda said suddenly, and it was as much of a surprise to her as it was to Jamie.

"Are you sure, it's family night after all..." She trailed off uncertainly, regarding her Mother's niceness and sad eyes distrustfully.

"You drove your Aunt Jenna all the way here." She pointed out before adding thoughtfully, "And your report card was good this semester, you aced all your classes and only got a few detentions."

That's why Elena couldn't go, she was grounded for flunking chemistry and history, and she had barely passed most of the others. Even her English grade was disappointing this semester, as it had been last semester and the semester before that too.

"Only if you're sure."

"Go get ready, I'm sure Tyler will be here to pick you up soon enough."

It wasn't that she wanted Jamie to be more like Elena, it was because she wanted to be young again, to have that special bond she and Jenna had as kids. She had been young once, and Jenna was still young- and she wanted Elena and Jamie to have what they had back then as sisters. She didn't want Elena to look at Jamie with the same bitterness that Miranda sometimes found herself harbouring, because Elena would be the housewife and Jamie would be at college, and one day Elena would realise just how old she looked when she caught sight of herself in the mirror, and then she'd see the seamless picture of Jamie as she smiled carelessly and she'd be mad- mad as hell.

And what worried her the most was the fact that Jamie was so much more, so much more brilliant than her siblings. And while Jeremy would look up to her, strive to be half as good as she was, Elena would be left in the dust. And she'd be bitter, tainted by the overbearing shadow of her better part, and she'd end up hating Jamie. Miranda couldn't let that happen, that's what she told herself when she picked at every little thing Jamie did, and she wouldn't realise it till it was too late, but it was her own failures that she was blaming Jamie for, and she'd always live with the guilt that she'd taken it out on her little girl. Her little Tinkerbell.

She wouldn't have to live with the guilt for long.

* * *

"I'm lost." The blue eyed stranger spoke. She had found him laying down in the road in the middle of nowhere once she had strayed from the party, looking for Elena, and she would have been perfectly content leaving him there if it weren't for his eyes.

They reminded her of Johnny, though they were entirely the wrong shade but striking all the same.

"You've strayed from town a good bit." Jamie observed, "But there's about as much to see there as there is here, so maybe that ain't a bad thing."

He smiled, introducing himself on a first name basis only. "Damon."

"Jamie."

"What are you doing out here, Jamie?" Damon inquired,

"Looking for my sister, hiding from my parents, they're probably together right now so the entire thing is a blow out." She frowned, "But hey, I'm in no rush."

Elena had snuck out, a typical teen rebellion gig, except she'd called her own parents to come pick her up. Her audacity truly astounded even Jamie at the best of times, and she was in no hurry to deal with the long conversation that would undoubtedly happen in the car.

"Don't let me stop you."

"No, please do."

Neither knew how much time had passed, them just standing there, in the middle of the road, looking into the distance, never glancing at each other and rarely bothering to speak.

"I should go."

"Bye, Jamie."

"See you on the flip side, Damon."

* * *

Drowning didn't hurt.

Jamie had only drowned alone in her dreams, and she preferred it that way as she watched.

Her Mom never did open her eyes. The possibility that she died on impact was all too high. There was no more guilt, and the fact that the last nice thing she did for her daughter, letting her go to that stupid party, is what killed her in the end was laughable. Jamie didn't much feel like laughing, though.

Now that she was in the water she felt lighter than she had in years, weightless even. That made her smile.

Jamie watched in morbid fascination as Grayson tried to get out, slamming his elbow at the window and grasping at the handle desperately. Elena had opened her eyes, but Jamie didn't do or say anything.

Elena tried to talk, tried to scream, her Mom wasn't awake. She told her father she loved him, he mouthed it back. Jamie just smiled and closed her eyes.

Jamie! Jamie! Wake up! Elena cried desperately, gripping onto her father.

But she was awake. She stayed awake long after the stranger took Elena away, staring into her Father's dead eyes, long and hard for the last time. She remembered the way he slammed the door this morning, so hard that it felt like the house shook. Or maybe it was just her, maybe she really was scared of her Dad.

She managed to escape from the seat belt, to drag herself through the door that was opened on Elena's side and push herself out of the car. She felt herself drifting.

And Jamie Gilbert sank for the last time.

* * *

 **(AN: Jamie's dead. Whatever. Anyway, I realised Rita was Ruth at first so for the sake of laziness let's just say Rita is a nickname or whatever. Thanks for the reviews and stuff. Oh, and happy 2017. I promise I'll work on the next chapter as quickly as possible.)**


	6. Chapter 6, Sunflowers

**Sink or Swim | Chapter Six, Sunflowers**

A blinding light the sun had died  
A new moon took its place  
Tidal waves and open graves the fate of the unhuman race  
The city's heart no longer beats no pity have I left to lend  
A sinner sits reciting Dylan it's now that I welcome the end

 _When the walls came tumbling down, Def Leppard_

* * *

The town Sheriff, Elizabeth Forbes, stood atop Wickery Bridge, looking out upon the small town from beneath the slanted peak of her officer's cap. It was an unbearably hot day, and she could hear the autonomous buzz of the radio from her cruiser drone on.

" _We're looking at a whopping 86 degrees this morning with an all time high of 92 degrees later today, folks! 'Tsa warm front on the move that doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon by the looks of things. And now, we have this week's number one, Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eyed Peas for the sixth consecutive week!"_ It was a voice she recognised, vaguely, because in a small town like this the local weather man was a celebrity and radio presenters also entered the rank of _somebody_.

She could hear Officer Delaney swearing under his breath, didn't have to turn around to know he was wiping at his neck with a big hefty paw, red in the face and sweating like a pig.

It clicked all of a sudden, not that it really mattered who was reading off a printed sheet back at the local station, but it clicked all the same. Ryan Prescott, they'd been in the same year back at school, though that seemed so far back now that she was on the brink of forty.

It was May 25th, only two days after the accident, and the case was already drawn to a close. Elizabeth Forbes didn't suspect foul play, and she didn't doubt the facts in the case file, but she just couldn't let it go. Though her opinion, or more fittingly, doubts, had went unheard. Richard Lockwood wanted Wickery Bridge back in working order, there was a high demand concerning the general public of their sleepy little town, and he wanted construction work to take place as soon as possible, police investigation be damned. So Liz bowed her head, said _Yes sir,_ Mayor Lockwood said jump and she said _how high, mister mayor sir?_ and walked out of his office with her tail tucked between her legs. It was more than a power play or something to do with titles and authority, this was a founding family matter. And the whole town felt it.

And yet there she stood, her gaze drifting to the water of the lake below. It seemed so daunting then, the picturesque lake- the kind they printed on postcards you bought on the way through town- seemingly holding all the answers as the waves crashed serenely and the water washed up against the rocks.

Elena Gilbert- _Caroline's friend,_ her mind supplied absently. _Oh, so now you remember your daughter. You ignored her all too easily this morning, pretended that you didn't notice her puffy eyes.-_ was found on the banks after an anonymous phone call was made and the paramedics came along. She hadn't woken up as of yet, but Liz wasn't hopeful that she'd remember much anyhow, never mind how she managed to get out of the water.

She'd broken the news personally, watched Jeremy Gilbert's face crumble and Jenna Sommers age before her very eyes. But that's what being a founder entailed, so she did her duty and watched it all happen with some sense of detachment.

 _Caroline was crying, didn't you notice?_

Jamie Gilbert was another matter entirely, and that had been when Jeremy stopped crying.

 _But your Daughter's still at home, probably tucked away in her room crying those baby blue eyes of hers out._

There was no body.

She had tried to diminish the hope in his eyes, because in that moment, watching the unforgiving waves underneath the bridge, cruel and deathly, she knew for a fact that there was no way she survived. But if she were dead then how the hell did Elena end up on the bank? And where was the body?

Liz didn't have the answers, and she doubted she ever would. But others were always willing to put in their two cents.

"D'ya know what I think?" Officer Delaney spoke up, leaning heavily against the cruiser, red faced in the unrelenting heat. "I think the kid went a'running scared, ayuh." He shifted his weight and the motor creaked in protest, moving along with his heavy figure.

She already knew this, knew exactly what he thought because he hadn't stopped telling her and whoever else would listen exactly what he thought since the night of the accident.

"Pro'ly argued with her folks, her old man ran the car off the bridge in a moment of heat, and when she got that sister of hers out she high tailed it into the woods. Left her folks for dead."

They'd scoured the woods, a desperate measure that came up with zilch. When they found Elena there were no tracks, it didn't look like she'd been dragged ashore and there were no footprints in the waterlogged soil. Absolutely nothing to support this theory at all.

Ralph Delaney had had dealings with Jamie Gilbert in the not so distant past, picked her up for fighting and possession and a shit load of other stuff she should have been charged for. Lock up and throw away the key. You wouldn't find it on record though, no matter how many verbal cautions and warnings she got. She was a Gilbert, a founder, and that meant she could get away with murder. And in his eyes she had gotten away with just that.

Some people around town thought that the accident wasn't such a bad thing, it reminded people that even those rich folks and their fancy founder titles weren't as untouchable as they thought. They got what was coming to them, maybe, or maybe not. It didn't really matter. Ralph Delaney was one of those people.

"I say we check up on that boy of hers, Johnny Marx. That'd be where she's hiding, yessiree."

Liz stared at the water, the peak of her cap shielding troubled eyes from the unrelenting glare of the sun. She remembered Jamie Gilbert, and maybe, just maybe, this wasn't such a bad thing.

* * *

They had asked if there was anywhere Jamie would go, a standard procedure sort of deal, he'd seen it on those cop shows and crime dramas that played on the television all the time.

That's what led him to her room. He was missing something, surely, and whatever he was missing was vital to the case, he could feel it in his bones, in his very being. Jeremy was certain that that was it, that the missing piece to the puzzle was here, somewhere, just waiting to be found, begging even.

He'd given them a list of people, they said they'd follow it up, he hadn't heard back yet.

Jeremy didn't find the missing piece, but he did find an eighth of weed in the bedside cabinet, tucked away in the back of the drawer.

With his knees tucked into his chest, an arm draped over them, holding the baggie- just the corner, with a light, delicate touch- and his head firmly planted into the folds of the fabric at the crook of his elbow, smothering, other arm slung over his head, he wept. He'd never seen weed before, never mind held it, but he knew what it was all the same. Knew what it did to you. And in that moment it didn't seem like such a bad idea.

This was the first of many nights that he'd cry in her room, huddled in the corner with the lights turned off and his arms held over himself protectively, but the only time that he was completely sober while doing it. That eighth was the start of something new, a fresh beginning.

Turns out that sometimes the beginning comes after the end.

Buddy saw something in Jeremy Gilbert that he had never seen in Jamie, and that was dollar signs. The kid was a gold mine, as far as Buddy Holland was concerned, and he meant to milk that mine for all it was worth while he still could. 'Cause people like Vicki Donovan would always be looking for a little bit of something, even when they were old and grey with kids and grandkids, she'd be looking for something to keep the tide at bay. But these rich folks, they were fleeting. He predicted Jeremy Gilbert would be rehabilitated, a real class citizen, in a little under a year.

Maybe he'd find a legal hobby, or conform to domestic drug addiction like everyone else with money did. It'd start out desperate, and his hand would slip into his sister's prescription bottle, and the hand would stay there until he developed a taste for the stuff, and Buddy would be out of business. But until then he was all his, more importantly his money was all his. Buddy decided he'd buy those boots today, he needed a new pair anyway, and he had a feeling that money would be coming his way sometime soon.

Watching Jeremy Gilbert as he walked down the drive, Buddy smiled. Oh yeah, he was good for the cash alright.

* * *

When Elena woke up to an unusual aching silence, the kind that stemmed from the absence of noise in a typically loud atmosphere, she reasoned that it must be a Saturday. That was the only possible reasoning for it, and it only took a second to register in that pretty little head of hers.

But she didn't wake to the smell of eggs or pancakes like she usually would on a weekend, her Mother wasn't in the kitchen and there were no signs of breakfast or dirty dishes. The cars were gone, she couldn't hear her Father's footsteps resonating against the wooden flooring of his study upstairs, or Jeremy playing music from his room, or the water turning on because Jamie was taking a shower. It was devoid of noise and human presence.

Elena chose to ignore it, because Jamie never left before her on the weekends if no one else was home, she knew Elena hated to be all alone and made sure that she'd be there if no one else was there. It was an unspoken rule, and they were always the ones held with the utmost regard between twins, because they were so bound by those rules they didn't even have to speak in order to follow them.

There was no note from Mom on the fridge, she'd never leave without a note. Jeremy slept in on weekends, but his jacket was gone. Dad would stay in his study for hours on end, pacing helped him think. But Jamie was upstairs. She had to be. It was an unspoken rule.

For some subliminal reason, Elena ran. She ran up the stairs where her Parents room was left untouched since that night and with no traces of Jeremy anywhere. It was Jamie's room that made her sink to the floor, because with her empty room came the truth crashing down on her broken figure.

Jenna had classes. Jeremy was staying at a friends. Her Parents were dead, and Jamie… Jamie was lost.

It hadn't been that long since she'd come home, the hospital had kept her in for some time, time she couldn't recall. Her injuries were still there, the pills sat in the bathroom cabinet. But no one else was there. They were all gone, and with time so would her wounds.

* * *

She wouldn't have known it was him except for the pictures, just like Uncle Billy and her grandparents that died when she was young or before she was born.

Jamie kept a picture of her and Johnny on the wall of her bedroom by the mirror. They were on the hood of the car, arms wrapped around each other and cigarettes lit, both smiling. Elena knew the picture was there, but she didn't know that Jamie kept it there to keep her afloat after drowning in her dreams. Didn't know and couldn't even begin to comprehend the sheer importance of it all.

Elena didn't know Johnny. She knew he dated her sister, that he made her smile, that he was her semblance of happiness, but nothing more. She'd been too wrapped up in Matt, her own insecurities and indecisiveness towards the relationship and the future.

He wasn't smiling then, leant against the car with a cigarette in his mouth and a tick in his jaw. It looked like he was ready to leave, and Elena should have let it be but found herself calling out all the same.

"Johnny?" It came out stronger than she'd expected, but she still sounded so unsure of herself.

He turned, and after a minute it seemed like recognition settled before his features smoothed out. "You're Jamie's sister."

Somehow he seemed so sure of himself, settled against the driver's side as he gazed at her coolly. Elena admired him for it, could see how he appealed to Jamie with his rough exterior and tough facade.

There was something frightening about Johnny Marx.

Before she knew it they were talking about Jamie. It hurt, but in a way it was like she was still here.

"It was like pulling teeth getting her to talk about stuff, y'know?" Johnny chuckled, but there was nothing happy about that sound. He sounded tired, like he hadn't slept in weeks. "But when she did bite the bait she'd talk about you."

This was news to Elena, but it did nothing to ease her mind.

* * *

"Jeez, your old man's a prize." Delaney muttered, he'd been around long enough to have a few run ins with the Senior Marx as well. Been around long enough to remember a little Johnny Marx jaywalking to school with bruises and what looked like a cigar burn on his wrist, blood on his jacket collar and bruises marring his pretty face.

"Hey, pal, watch your mouth." Johnny retorted icily. Apart from his eyes, frosty going on arctic, being narrowed he showed no signs of conflict. He didn't have to, the eyes were unnerving enough.

Delaney, equally smug as indignant, could never resist poking a bear. "Was that a threat, Marx?"

"You don't rag on a guys old man, it's just basic manners is all." Johnny spoke like it was law.

"Yeah, cuz your old man was a real wallflower."

"Well at least my woman weren't a dirty ole cooze cruising on guys younger than her own son. What, the pension wasn't cutting it no more?"

Johnny didn't get much pleasure out of life, he was hard up with smiles, but the sight of Officer Delaney going red in the face and eyes bulging out of his skill made his lips lift just a tad.

"You better watch yourself, son."

"Maybe you should watch your wife, officer Delaney."

Later that night Johnny found himself in bed with another girl, a busty blonde with big tits and pouty lips. He'd picked her up at a bar he frequented at, where the people knew him by name and the girls knew him by something else. He hadn't been around for a while, he'd been with Jamie and hadn't needed to pick up a girl.

He was awake, sitting for fear of laying next to a strange girl. She wasn't supposed to stay, to fall asleep beside him, but he'd been so used to having Jamie there next to him that he hadn't told her to leave. He'd forgotten, if only for a moment.

God, he was a wreck. Running on no sleep and booze on an empty stomach. Pining after some dead girl who dumped him.

Jamie had dumped him only a few days before she died, like she'd known all along that it was the end. To Johnny it made sense, because Jamie knew everything, somehow she just knew. It wasn't that out there to think she'd known what would happen, at least not in his head.

Her hands roamed over his skin with a wandering touch, and for a moment he let himself pretend it was Jamie.

That it was Jamie running her hands over his shoulders, arms draping themselves across his body as her fingers dipped to his chest. He could stay like that forever, and he wanted to more than anything. But as he opened his eyes, lifting his head just a tad, he caught no signs of Jamie in the broken mirror across the room.

He'd broken it the night she died. Could still feel the damaged skin over his knuckles.

The touch was all wrong all of a sudden, her nails were too long and her hands too soft, she had warm skin and a fake tan.

"Out." Johnny didn't choke, he just said it plain as day in that polar murmur of his.

"What was that, baby?" She cooed, warm breath fanning against his jaw. He felt sick and angry and hopelessly sad. Jamie would have never called him baby, and she would never have come across as desperate.

"Get out." It came out the exact same, but there was something forceful about it somehow.

She clambered off the bed, tripping over the sheets and searching wildly for her clothes. This had been a mistake.

There was no guilt. Dead people didn't care after all. But the problem was that Johnny was alive, and evidently Johnny fucking cared.

* * *

Damon had a dream about the girl he met on the road, the one he hadn't had the heart to compel. She was standing in the rain, sopping wet and clothes weighed down, hair stuck to her skin and a weary sigh escaping her lips. Her name, he couldn't remember her name, but he doubted she'd remember his.

That's what led him here, a dingy bar with bad lighting and poor furnishing.

He settled himself at the bar, slumped forward with his elbows resting on the surface and his ass firmly placed on the stool. It was safe to say he wasn't going to be moving anytime soon.

The worst thing about having plans was having to wait. There was no anticipation or build up as of yet, and there wouldn't be for a long while coming, so here he was. At a bar on the outskirts of mystic falls, stewing in his own plots and feeling pitifully bored. Even eternity had its downfalls, he guessed.

Some blonde was eyeing his direction from the opposite side of the bar, though it could have easily been at the guy sitting next to him.

He seemed to be having a worse day than Damon by the looks of things.

Head hanging lowly, one hand loosely holding onto his pint, the other a fist sitting upon the surface of the bar. This guy had problems, alright.

Damon eyed the blonde anyway, because the other guy sure as hell didn't seem interested, not that Damon would care anyway.

"She's an average lay at best, if that's what you're wondering." The guy suddenly piped up, sullen voiced and weary eyed. "Fucking clingy too."

Damon chuckled, "Guess I'll pass."

The guy hummed a response, took another drink from his glass, and settled back into his seat. He nodded to the bartender, who looked relieved when the guy averted his eyes, momentarily unnerved by his gaze.

"So, why are you day drinking?" Usually Damon didn't care, and he sure as hell wouldn't be asking questions, but something about that dream had unsettled him.

He huffed as a new drink was slided across the bar, "A girl."

"Ah, it always comes down to the love of a woman." Damon piped up knowingly, fiddling with his day ring.

"That's your deal too?"

Damon was suddenly reminded of the dream, the remnants of clammy skin and an innate cold spreading through him.

"Me? Partly. But it's five o'clock somewhere."

* * *

 **(AN: This isn't an actual chapter sorta deal, but it is a sign of gratitude. Thanks for 150 followers and 100 favourites, it's absolutely bitchin'. And most importantly, Happy St. Paddy's day, you filthy fucking animals!)**


	7. Chapter 7, Empty Space

**Sink Or Swim | Chapter Seven, Wake Up**

And she spoke nine words,  
And now we're sinking,  
But I can't find it in myself to want to lie  
To keep this thing from going down.  
 _Sex, EDEN_

 **(AN: WARNING: There are some very dodgy, if not explicit, references in this chapter alluding to child molestation (the aftereffects, if not the subject itself, nothing explicit) and some homophobic slurs (not in relation to someone gay, just as a general slur and self-deprecating manner). Usually I don't provide warnings, but I am aware that these are harmful to people and I don't want anyone reading this story to be affected strongly by the content of this chapter in a way I never intended. I only want Jamie induced tears, thank you very much. I also want to emphasise that the homophobic slurs are used self-deprecatingly, while not within a sexuality context it could still hit a sore spot, especially in terms of internalised homophobia, so please keep that in mind.)**

* * *

There was only darkness, solid for a time but phasing in and out in varying shades of grey and gloom. Before that darkness had come a light, a blinding white light- the whitest thing she'd ever seen, the kind she s'posed would burn your eyeballs outta your head- but there was no relief. It was an overwhelming blur of pain and no pain, instances where she felt crippled but couldn't identify the place where it hurt- _Tell me honey, or better yet, show me, where he touched you, where did the bad man touch you?_ \- and then came the aching numbness, and with that she knew she'd done something to her ribs and her shoulders, but that knowledge would fade as the pain flared once again.

 _Point at the doll, sweetie, point where he touched you, that bad man, that very bad man_. In this case the bad man was the pain, and for the life of her- the pain spiked, an all time high, and she wished she could scream but she couldn't move and no sound left her lips- she couldn't point out where it was. She supposed that was suitable, the bad man never paid for what he'd done, the perpetrator went untouched. But just like the child in her muddled mind, the one who'd been abused and used, she was left confused and scared.

The light, that was something important- and God said, "Let there be light." And so there was light- that was all she was capable of holding on to in her dull mind and battered vessel. Internally she wailed, and for just a moment she could feel her ribs, could feel the agony her body had been put through, and then she felt lightheaded and the pain simply became one again, indistinguishable from the next guy.

She wished she was dead, she didn't know it as her shoulder blades burned alive, but it was coherent enough during the period of numbness- oh, how she longed for nothing at all, pure oblivion, where the pain was gone and she went brain dead.

So she lay there, and as numbness swept over her as the tide came in, she knew. She wished she was dead, she wished to God that she was God damned dead. But a small part of her, the intellect she'd lost during the pain game that made a reappearance soon before the encore, rationalised that she was already dead.

 _Dead as a doornail, Jamie, dead and gone_. But that left her too once the numbness left the shore, and all she knew was pain once again.

Let me be dead, oh Lord almighty, let me be dead.

Gone with the light, Jamie faded to black.

* * *

The funeral was today. Tyler was currently behind the Church, suited and booted, tugging at the collar of his starch white shirt with his tie undone. God, it was like he couldn't breathe. Suddenly he could hear Jamie's laughter, seeing him in a suit would have made her crack up, if only she was here to see it. For a moment he _could_ see it, as the sun shone in his eyes and his vision blurred. She was standing over him in the too bright light, the sun shining like a halo over her shroud of black curls, her yankee cap stuffed over the mass with the cap peak facing backwards.

Jamie was grinning amusedly down at him, circles under her eyes and skin ever so pale, a nebula of freckles dotted in arrays across her cheeks and nose. Her lips were pulled up, baring just a bit of tooth as a husky laugh escaped her. She was pretty, and she was familiar, and his chest ached. He could feel tears in his eyes, hurriedly wiped away, because Tyler Lockwood was no pussy. That made him laugh, and he could hear her laugh too as his voice came out strained and broke midway through, fading to nothing. She faded to nothing.

"Shit, Jamie." He swore desperately, sliding down the wall, "Why'd you have to go and die on me, huh?" He was choking up, he realised ashamed. With his head hung low, knocking against his knees, arms hanging over them as hands gripped tightly and shook, Tyler Lockwood cried.

He couldn't go in there, not now. Not with tears streaming down his face, looking too pale and seeming to lose more weight by the second. He could see it dropping off of him in heaps, the way he seemed bony and lanky without all that muscle to bulk him up. But how was it possible to eat when she was dead? How in the hell was he supposed to live without her? He didn't know the answers, and he was so scared. Jamie had always scared him a little, she was too real, she knew too much, and she was dead. It didn't get any more real than that, he thought fleetingly.

You know a guy for a long while, your entire life even, and you couldn't just accept that they were dead in an instant. Gone.

Tyler was mean, he was angry and mean and he hated the world. Just like his Dad. Tough, he thought vaguely, his old man was one tough son of a bitch, and he didn't give a hoot about no one but himself. Not his wife, not his kid, absolutely nothing. You get mean like that, and you look out for number one and number one only, and you didn't get hurt. Tyler was all too much like his Father and all too different, but that was going to change. Because when you get mean like that, when you get that tough, you didn't get hurt. And he was so _tired_ , despite the weight loss he felt heavier than ever, and he knew sleep would do nothing for it.

He'd rather have anybody's hate than their pity.

Tyler Lockwood, the boy whose Father smacks him round, with a boozy housewife of a Mother. For all his money, artistic ability and athletic brilliance he couldn't keep a friend for the life of him. It painted a sad picture alright, one that'd make you weep. So he got mad, he took out his anger on the world, and he got mean. Because Tyler Lockwood would rather have anybody's hate than their pity.

He imagined what his Father would say just then, pale face peering up from over his knees like a child, staring into the too bright sun. And his face went stern and his quaking hands pointed ahead determinedly. "You're a piece of shit, Tyler, a no good faggot- stop pussying about and act like a man for Christ sake!" His voice broke halfway through, he choked on his own spit and jumped over syllables.

"Fuck!" He let out, fist slamming against the concrete, the slapping of skin coming into contact with the ground sent his head reeling and he didn't feel any pain, "Fuck, fuck- fu... _fuck_." He'd lost his gumption by the time the last one came about, weak and disbelieving. Numb. That's when he started to run.

He found himself in the bathroom, locking the door and panting heavily. It was hard to run in a suit, the seams and folds of the fabric were constricting, he couldn't move freely. He was too contained, caged in his own garments and mental state respectively. Like a caged animal, he paced. He leaned over, feeling sick, gripping at the basin of the sink. He struck the mirror. Fumbling, he turned the taps, water washing away blood, tears washed away in shame.

"Tyler?" A voice, too kind and warm, called out.

It was Pastor Young, he realised dismally, but his thoughts weren't all put together yet. He'd lost his calm, he always seemed to lose his calm eventually, no matter how hard he tried not to, it just slipped through his fingers at ease.

Back in first grade Tyler had dabbled in sports, but he had never been a team player. He had Jamie, and that seemed like a whole lot to him, because she had it all. She could kick a ball, jump a hurdle, swing a bat and run for the hills, she was his first and only pick. But Pastor Young saw something in him, something he couldn't name or explain, because no one but Jamie had ever seen any worth in him, not even himself. He was a self conceited little shit, still was if he was being honest, and God did it feel good. Sometimes, though, Tyler didn't feel so hot about his behaviour, about all the shit that he did. Doubt would creep in at the dead of night, when his Father would shout and get a little handsy, when his Mom looked at him through dim eyes, there but not put together. But above all that, the mean and the hate he carried around with him, he'd been a good friend to Jamie, and he repeated that over and over in his head. It was all he had left, and he didn't even have that anymore, the comfort and reassurance it once brought were gone. Buried six feet under.

If Tyler Lockwood had one redeemable quality, it was his friendship with Jamie Gilbert. No matter how badly he acted, how crap he treated others, him and Jamie had always been there for each other. Except for that one time, the incident with Randall Harrison. That had been on him, he knew, because he'd deserved that bloody nose, and that was the truth. Randall Harrison gave him a bloody nose, so Jamie broke his.

Suddenly, Tyler felt sick to his stomach.

Pastor Young had commended their friendship, said it was something worthwhile, something great, he recalled blearily.

"Tyler, son, I saw you come in here. Come on out."

He was the man who showed Tyler the way, the value of teamwork and the qualities of leadership. But it had been Jamie who gave him the nod, Jamie who made people listen, Jamie who made sure that they didn't write him off just yet. It had been Jamie that had given Randall Harrison a broken nose.

Then he could see her, standing at the sink and peering down at him woefully.

" _Meet me at dawn at the playing field."_

Tyler chucked up his guts in the bathroom of the Church, everything came spilling out until there was nothing left. Just a boy with his head hung over a toilet bowl, mean and angry and full of hate, with not one redeemable quality left to his name. And he cried.

* * *

He was back, clearer than ever. She could make out his pale skin, his hooded eyes, dark and strangely content for the time being, and the faintest twitch of his lips. He had wrapped his arms around her body, filled her with warmth and took the pain away.

It was solid, she was coherent enough to realise, and she could feel it. Skin on skin contact, foreign but comforting. Jamie sunk into the embrace, head lulling forward and body heaving, exhaustion racking her slim frame. She wanted nothing more than to stay like this forever, and she was scared it would end.

 _"It's time to wake up, Da...n..."_

Her grip faltered, his touch faded, the volume phased in and out. Blinding white skin, the colour of a television tuned to a dead channel, white noise.

" _It's time t… go. Wake up."_

But Jamie didn't know how, and more importantly, she didn't know if she wanted to. Here the pain was gone, here her mind was at rest, and she was content to just stay there. With him.

She moved closer, and his arms tightened their hold on her waist, pulling her closer, welcoming the contact. He didn't want her to leave, and she understood, because she felt it too. In her weary mind she pleaded for him to be selfish, to enjoy it while it lasted- prolong it for as long as he could, because she was so tired of the pain. She didn't want to think anymore.

Her head picked itself up, and she could just about make out his eyes when he spoke once more.

 _ **"Wake up."**_

Jamie woke up like she so often did, the heavy feeling of water in her lungs and the burning in her chest that made her heave was there just like always. But her cheek was settled against something cold and wet, her hands were grasping at damp dirt and the sun against her figure was warming and cold all at once. She didn't open her eyes, not yet, instead she kept them clamped shut so as to try and process everything beforehand. It gave her a moment to think, think about what was the question, and all that she could come up with were blanks.

She cracked open an eye at once, and she could already tell that she had been put through the ringer. It was like the pain wasn't there when her eyes were closed only to hit tenfold when they opened for good. The other eye followed, and she was met with water running over rock, her body on the bank of a water front where dampness and coldness were rightfully at home in the soil, she was just visiting, a tourist by right.

The sun, burning bright in the morning sky, was shining down on her broken figure. It was warm, the water was cold, Jamie was shaking and her skin was aching. It was a commodity, and she wasn't entirely equipped to handle it at that very moment in time.

Calculating, hesitant at best, Jamie indulged in the time to prepare herself mentally, not that it'd do much, but moving seemed an impossible feat. She knew she had to though, move that is, somehow, but God was she tired. One by one she tested the mobility of each limb, a painstakingly long routine, one that made her want to scream and cry, and while she was feeling indulgent she didn't have the damn luxury of noise, not without expelling the water from her lungs that may or may not be real this time. She wouldn't let herself give in, not now. It was time to wake up.

Nimble fingers flexed, brushing against the rock bed under soil and dirt that her eyes strayed to look past. Cool, clear water, taunting her, reminding her just how thirsty she was. It washed against her skin, found it's way underneath her clothes and brushing against her like a lovers touch, kissing her neck and folding itself in on her. Her arms were shaking, but she reached out, no inexplicable hope or fancy ideas of the past or the future, this wasn't _The Great Gatsby_ , it was just a broken body trying to pick itself back up again. F. Scott Fitzgerald be damned. It was her right side that ached, the side she had been resting on, and her shoulder screamed, stiff and throbbing.

" _So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."_ Jamie rasped, angry and half sorry for herself, with cracked lips and bright eyes. She never understood why she remembered any of it, she had hated Nick and thought Gatsby was a fool. " _You see I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad things that happened to me."_

Her fingers closed around a smooth pebble, she let out a breath and let her muscles relax and tense, and she shifted and heaved her weight until she was held up. She pushed herself off her arms, her legs folded in on themselves like a broken doll, and a hollow laugh escaped her, busy and tired. What are the chances, dead or alive, that she'd find herself in water yet drowning in her thoughts and her thoughts alone. _Swim, Jamie, swim god dammit!_ Gone were the thoughts of Gatsby and Fitzgerald, the only thing that existed was the swell of pain and the way the water caressed her battered body and how the sun swept over her jaundiced skin.

One step forward, two steps back. She rose on slender legs, like a fawn taking its first steps in spring. _Remember Bambi?_ Jamie shook all of those thoughts out of her head, fell, pushed herself back up, palms slipping on rocks as her knees trembled and her thighs shook.

 _On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures._ Jamie felt hollow, like a ghost, but she remembered Church all too well. _How good are you with theology? Nicene Creed ring any bells?_ Snorting, clumps of wet hair falling into grey eyes, Jamie lowered herself onto her knees. Her ribs ached, her shoulders burned, and her head was swimming.

 _It ain't March, and I ain't Jesus_ , she amended tiredly.

She stood up then, and this time she wouldn't fall, somehow she was sure of it. Third time's the charm, though she reckoned she'd had a lot more than three tries. One foot in front of the other, left, right, left, stumble a little but that's okay. Rome wasn't built in a day.

* * *

The funeral was today and they still hadn't found the body.

Jeremy stood at the pews of the Church, at the front reserved for family for the first time but not the last. Somehow he knew that much, somehow he understood it and acknowledged it was the truth. Jamie had once told him that death was not a singular occurrence, it came in numbers and it came about quick, and it took everyone by surprise. He wasn't sure how she knew that, but he knew that she was right, because his eldest sister was always right. Somehow.

In that moment Jeremy knew a lot of things. He was sure of a lot of things for the first time, and it all came about because of uncertain times, and it was fleeting. But he didn't know about Rita, or Enzo or the other townspeople that had dropped like flies during that time. He hadn't kept track like Jamie did, didn't know she had cut out that section of the paper for a couple of months straight, that she had a mound of clippings she kept in her bedside locker because she knew those people. That had been a very strange time in her life, surreal almost, and Jeremy was only beginning to understand. She would have told him about it if she was there, would have told him straight, the whole truth. But she wasn't.

There was no body. The funeral was today and they still hadn't found the body. But Jeremy knew she was dead, because Jamie Gilbert wanted to be dead and she always got what she wanted. She wanted to be dead the night of the crash, had wanted to be dead long before that night. This was all very clear in his mind as the eulogy rang out through the rancid air of the Church.

It was stifling, the standing and the sitting and the staring at coffins. One for Mom, one for Dad, one for Empty space, because Jamie was different, even in death. She couldn't just die normally, could she? Not after living so unimpeded from the rest, having a sempiternal hold of those around her just hadn't been enough. Now she offered them some sort of sick, fallacious hope.

It would never be enough, it wouldn't even come close. Because his sister had been great, so much better and burning so much brighter than anyone could comprehend, and she was dead. He knew she was, knew that the anomalous conditions of which she had perished from was a hopeless situation, a means to the end. There was no hope, because hope was a damning thing.

Standing at the pews, Jeremy saw himself thirty years in the future, with a wife and kids and a white picket fence. He wasn't happy, he didn't really know what happiness was- not to the full extent at least, because he hadn't really had time to live yet, and neither had Jamie- and they'd find her. After all that time they'd find her body at the bottom of the lake, and he'd get the call, and he'd- Someone pinched his arm, and his head snapped up to see his Uncle Billy watching him carefully.

William Gilbert saw the strange look in his eye, and he understood it all too well.

All her life it had felt like a struggle to stay afloat, and she was hell bent on swimming. Jamie Gilbert's life was a wreck. A complete and utter catastrophe from beginning till end - How's that for a eulogy?

* * *

She knew she was in Mystic Falls before she even so much as stepped out of the water front. It was a small town, and she'd explored every inch and boundary of it at least once. That's how she knew which direction to head towards, that the Salvatore Boarding house was the closest landmark she had. And she nearly collapsed when she saw the roof over the hilltops of the meadows. Christ, did she really used to bike around these parts as a kid? Was her stamina really not up to snuff? But then again she had just been in an accident, she thought carefully.

 _The accident._

It hit her like a two-by-four, the sudden realisation that she'd been involved in an accident.

Flashes of muted tones of blue, her Father's elbow slamming against the window, her Mother's head lulling haplessly, Elena- _Elena!_

Jamie fell to her knees, reduced to all fours as the water finally bum rushed through every available orifice and evaded her senses. The putrid burn in her throat made her heave some more, fingers knotted in grass, eyes watering as a natural response to the burn. Oh, fuck- that was the only thing coherent in this whole ordeal. _Oh, fuck, is right,_ Jamie amended weakly.

She pushed herself back up, ready to acquaint herself with the land of the living once more. Zach would help her, because Zach Salvatore was a good man when it came down to it, and he'd extend his help to anyone. It just so happens that they were friends, and so he better roll out the red carpet because Jamie Gilbert was back, baby.

Ignoring the tinge of blue that clung to her vision, the way in which she ambled on unsteady legs, she promised herself that she'd think it over later. First, get help, there was plenty of time for reflection later.

" _One for the money, two for the show."_ She hummed absently, and a smile nearly reached her lips at that. " _Three to get ready, now go, cat, go."_

"But don't you _chuck up_ on my blue suede shoes!" She crooned breathlessly before peeling off into incomprehensible laughter. "Aw, shit-" She let out between gasps, "Elvis ain't got nothin' on me!"

So she walked, singing and laughing to the tune 'Blue Suede Shoes' by the King himself, Elvis Presley, and she didn't have a care in the world. The sun was shining, the birds were a-singin'- she was too- and Jamie Gilbert was alive. And what a beautiful thing it was, she thought as she trudged up the porch steps, swiping the newspaper as she reached for the door.

It would have been easy to overlook, the accident had been on the 23rd, today was most likely the 24th, the paper was only a few days old. Maybe Zach was away, hadn't informed the paperboy not to bother coming out, he was a recluse after all, or maybe he just forgot to pick that paper up and only picked up the recent ones. But Jamie was sparse to over look anything, not even something as minute as the date.

May 22nd, 1994.

Fist halfway suspended already, she faltered, and it was only as her knuckles brushed against the wooden panel protruding from the stain glassed window that she realised they were torn upon.

Blurry, blearily, she saw her pale skin against the gloom of blue smash against the window repeatedly, then struggling with the seat belt as the space where Elena once sat went empty.

Jamie swallowed, immediately regretting the decision as the fresh taste of sea water rose.

She was sailing down shit creek without a paddle, alright.

* * *

 **(AN: I never thought I'd use warnings in this story, but it's gotten a bigger audience than I had counted on and I didn't want anyone who is affected by certain topics to suffer on account of my insensitivity. Sometimes harmful topics and controversial words create a better impact, and I wouldn't use it if it didn't have a place in the story. This wasn't shock value or anything of the sort, it was a way in which I portrayed Jamie's physical and mental state and Tyler's spiral. There was nothing explicit, in my opinion, but there were hints, and I am mindful of this especially in relation to internalised homophobia.**

 ***THIS ISN'T A FULL CHAPTER, IT'S PART TWO OF CHAPTER SIX BUT I FIGURED INSTEAD OF DOING PT 1 & 2 OR A & B I'D JUST MAKE IT CHAPTER SEVEN.**

 **The story has progressed, and I am very thankful for everyone's reviews and the following this story has received. I thought the storyline was pretty obvious, it was one of my main worries, but so far it seems like I'm still in control. Hopefully everything is revealed as the story progresses, and that I don't just give everything away- gotta build up that suspense.**

 **In other news I wrote a 12,000 word novella for my EPQ (Extended project qualification) AND I aced my creative writing mock for my english class, so all is going well on this end.**


	8. Chapter Eight, Crows and Dead Things

**Sink Or Swim | Chapter Eight, Crows and Dead Things**

Flashback to 1999,  
It's the summer,  
Not a cloud in the sky.  
Present day,  
Things have changed,  
Summer's over  
And it rains here every day.

 _Another Sad Song, Lower Than Atlantis_

* * *

He heaved a hefty sigh, letting stiff hands curl and uncurl sparingly, trying to shake the ache from his own rigid joints as the body hit the ground with a dull _thud._ As it turns out, his hands weren't the only things stiff round here. It had been a long day, he acknowledged absently, glaring at his hands that seemed to curl around something that was no longer there by default. Hauling bodies in the hot May sun down south was a piece of work alright, he considered it hard labour, what with the dead weight and all. Whistling a sharp note to some tune he couldn't recall the name of had almost masked the sound of a body dragging against the dirt, and the sound of tarp scraping against every available surface.

At his feet, illuminated by the moon currently at a waning crescent, was the dead body of Jamie Gilbert, whose funeral had occurred that very day. Who knew the best way to sneak a body round this ho-dunk town was to do it while the funeral of said dead person was going on? He took the time to marvel in this act of pure genius, if he said so himself, while he shifted the tarp the body was on. Boy, for such a skinny little thing she sure weighed a tonne, he mused, still feeling the ache of his hands as they tinged between numb and protesting. He was relieved not to feel the infectious cold of lifeless skin against his own, though he could still feel the ghost of it's touch- Making him shudder and jerk, a dose of paranoia taking it's toll.

Leafing through an old book, one that was well worn and read, he tried to recall where exactly that concealing spell was...

* * *

Jamie half convinced herself that none of it was real, she was good at lying, nothing like Lainey in that retrospect, or maybe all too much like her. She was at home, she thought. It was late and Lainey was getting ready for school on time for once, Jeremy's CD player was busted- that's why she couldn't hear any noise- but he'd burst through that door any minute now to borrow some eyeliner. It was the only makeup she had, and that was only because Mom refused to buy him any and he was too embarrassed to go buy some himself. He was going through his emo phase, she thought with a smile. Mom was cooking breakfast in the kitchen, going the whole mile. There'd be fresh OJ in squeaky clean glasses, you'll see. She could smell it, and far be it from her senses to lie to her. And if Jamie listened really closely, she could hear her Father's footsteps as he paced in his office.

It was late, and she still had sleep in her eyes and was scarcely dressed, because she had spent the night listening to her parents whispered arguments and her Mother's hushed crying. That's what she kept telling herself, over and over and over again. Until it became a reality, entirely plausible and comfortably familiar. How many times had she woke up like that, how many times at night had she stayed awake to those sounds? It would have been sad if she wasn't so desperate to hold on to it, but denial had never been easy for Jamie, she simply couldn't pretend anymore, not even as the familiar sting of fear set in.

Her eyes began to open properly, the footsteps fading away, and she was still folded in on herself, cramped into the little race car bed that belonged to her childhood respectively. Jamie was good at lying, but she couldn't lie to herself anymore.

In 1994 she was on the brink of turning two, and Miranda would have still been pregnant with Jeremy.

So she set her chin upon her knees that were tucked into her chest in order to fit into the race car bed she had loved so wholly and innocently as a child, wrapping her arms around herself fruitlessly. There was a heaviness in her chest, and her eyes struggled to stay open, and she knew none of it was from tiredness, just helplessness.

Yesterday, a prospect that seemed so far away now, she had wandered down the streets of her hometown, with wet clothes and a tired countenance. Jamie wasn't expecting a coming home party, but she did expect there to be people out and about at the very least. Mystic Falls was relatively small, and she'd watched the inhabitants wash away from the town in the early hours of the morning, for it to become taxi land with only herself, the occasional straggler, and sometimes Zach, to be the sole occupants of the night, but it'd never been this dead before.

The streets were empty, barren if not for the cars that dated fifteen years back at the very least, and Jamie walked them with a disparaging resignation, because there was fuck all else she could do. Being the grease monkey she was, she had noticed the cars straight off, even without the newspaper that had sent warning flags off in her mind. For some obligatory reason, suspense washing over her and depression settling against her skin like sweat, she found herself standing on the porch of her long time home. It had only been a matter of time, because she'd spent the last few years trying to escape from her home only to end up there in the end despite all odds.

Vaguely, she remembered _28 Days Later_ , another Danny Boyle film she had watched around Johnny's as the sunset gave way to night fall and the faint blue light of the television set was the only thing filling the dark. This wasn't London though, her mind pointed out hazily, this was small town Virginia, and maybe it had all just been a dream anyway. A whole city gone empty was one thing, but maybe it wasn't so impossible for a town. At least, that's what she tried so hard to tell herself.

In her head she could hear Tyler quizzically, he asked a lot of questions while watching those movies, but he could never hide just how invested he was, not where Jamie was concerned. And as their heroic protagonist, Cillian Murphy, or rather Jim, was running on screen she could feel Johnny's body brush up against her own. Suddenly she was hyper aware of the way his body moved with each inhale and exhale, up and down, and his breath fanning against the side of her face as he sat fully engrossed.

Loneliness, she had decided, was a one way gate to insanity. Suddenly any contact, no matter how minimal, became something grand. And she could _feel_ it, she could smell Tyler's cologne and Johnny's nicotine stained breath, could feel her nerves standing on end as skin touched skin, could see the screen so vividly with it's bright colours and buzzing sounds- and she wanted to cry.

Jamie thought about them, her family, and the deep uncertainty that came with it, but family had never been easy where she was concerned. She had thought of them when she ambled up the porch steps, when she opened the door to a version of her home that seemed nothing more than a vague memory, when she saw her old toys and that damned race car bed. And she mulled it over until she collapsed.

She supposed her parents hadn't survived, but Elena might have. Her twin was alive, and out of everyone in that car she had deserved to live the most. In her mind she recognised the defaults, two kids without parents needed a caretaker and she would place her bets on Jenna. Jenna, who was currently at college and trying to make a life for herself. Someone else might have pointed out how unfair it all was, but Jamie had come to terms with life being unfair long ago. Uncle John would inherit the clinic, she was sure, or at least hold onto it until Elena and Jeremy came of age. She wondered briefly what Uncle Billy would get, he deserved something after looking after her, and she supposed her Mom would have took care of it. She hadn't been perfect, far from it, but she was kind hearted, and she would repay her debts.

She had recognised the olive branch extended to her the day of the accident, and she supposed she had forgiven her in that moment. Because Miranda Gilbert had tried, perhaps a little too late but she tried all the same.

 _Uncle_ Billy, yeah right, like she hadn't noticed how she had his eyes or his dark shroud of hair, or that she grew taller than Elena and didn't look so much like the rest of the Gilbert's.

She figured she was in hell, as she stared up at the ceiling from the confinements of her fire-engine-red ferrari bed frame, and the faint nausea pooling in her lower stomach. She'd done a lot of things in life that could warrant a sentence in hell, and she couldn't seem to muster up the guilt or regret in order to ask for forgiveness. Jamie had drank and smoked and took every drug in sight, she broke Randall Harrison's nose and got into a lot of fights, fights she couldn't actually remember as the sun came up and the bruises began to bloom. She swore, used the Lord's name in vain, stole on the odd occasion, ripped people off, gambled, and the list went on. But what really earned her a one way ticket to hell was the hatred she harboured for her own Father. Sure, she had forgiven her Mother somewhat, if not fully, but she could never forgive Grayson Gilbert, and for that she condemned.

Funny, she always figured that if God was real then he sure as hell had no business with her, but apparently he had been paying attention after all.

Pushing herself out of bed, she wasn't at all surprised at the pain in her ribs or upper back, she'd been mindful of it the whole time.

Pulling off her t-shirt, she hissed as fabric brushed against her sore shoulders, the skin tingling uncomfortably as the sting of bruises served to wake her up fully. Catching her reflection in the mirror, standing in the exact same spot it did fifteen years into the future, she realised it wasn't as bad as it felt. It was a darn sight worse.

Splotches of off-maroon reds varying in vividity and violent shades of purples painted the back of her shoulders and upper back, and her poor ribs were a mixture of deep blues ranging all the way from indigos to dusk. There was some un-discoloured skin beneath the actual bones of the ribs, which only made the sight so much more ghastly and striking, and Jamie hung her head with a deep rooted sigh.

Throwing on a white long sleeved tee she had salvaged from a box downstairs, decisively not her Father's, she stretched as far as comfortably possible before her body objected too much. She'd found it in a box full of Uncle Billy's possessions, and she supposed this was around the time her Father and him had fallen out, and they never exactly fell back in again. The shirt reached to mid-thigh, drowning her petite frame, and she fisted the ribbed material desperately for a moment.

Screwing her eyes shut tight, she wiped at her face with a fist covered by a sleeve that was too long, huffing out a laugh as she opened her eyes. It was the only comfort she had, and she realised she couldn't stay in Mystic Falls any longer, never mind the house.

She liked this shirt, which was a good thing because she didn't think she was getting out of it anytime soon. Not with her battered body still every colour of the rainbow, a rainbow made entirely of varying shades of bruised dermis and it's underlying damage. It even hurt to breath, and she could only hope that a rib hadn't nicked a lung or something, because from the looks of it she was in no man's land. That made her snort, because that wasn't where her worries would end concerning her lungs. She sunk, that's what she did, and just how long had she been in the water? How much water got into her lungs, and just how much was still there?

Strangely, Jamie felt free walking around, with the fresh air that cut a bit of a breeze, and the stiffness seemed to fade with her good mood. She'd get outta Mystic Falls alright, you bet she would, because Jamie Gilbert didn't have anything left to lose. Least of all her life.

Of course, she thought about her family, how could she not? (Maybe she should ask Elena, she's doing a pretty good job, but how was Jamie to know that?) but they weren't here. No one was. So she'd go through the motions, basking in her solitude and left to stew, and if it was hell after all she'd make the big man upstairs woe the day he turned his back on her.

There was something inside of her that screamed, it screamed at the pain and it screamed at her mind. It said that she was to blame, that she wasn't innocent and she never had been. It flared up at the thought of her siblings, and her parents and the flurry of emotions that came with it.

 _"You knew you should have stayed."_ That voice said, _"You should have swam, Jamie, you should have at least tried."  
_  
Had she tried? She thought back, fighting through the flash of white and the blue tint and the way her Father's eyes began to bulge as air came harder to come across. And the answer she came to was an astounding no.

No, she supposed, and it reiterated through her mind over and over again, she hadn't really tried at all. She just hadn't had the heart to stay in the car, to die slowly as she stared at her Mother's comatose body- all too much like her childhood. To watch as her Father's body stopped fighting even as unconsciousness took over and his lungs filled with water no matter how hard they tried to breath. So she slipped away, and she'd sank, because she didn't want to swim anymore. But she should have tried.

 _"That's right, Jamie, old buddy ole pal ol friend o'mine. You coulda, you shoulda, you better hope and pray. That's why you're in hell, isn't it? You practically killed yourself back there!"  
_  
Yes, she amended, yes she did. And now she was sunk.

So she stopped at the Mystic Bar and Grill, parked her pretty blue '69 Chevy Camaro Convertible up by the sidewalk. In her mind she had the faintest picture of her '71 Buick GS, all black and sleek and pretty on the driveway, but she wasn't fully aware of it just like she wasn't really awake. Wasn't really alive, the voice screamed.

One more drink, she told herself then, one more drink and I'm done with this town.

 _"That's not true though, is it, Jamie? You'll never be done with this town, not really, because you can never be done with where you were born and raised and where you met your end."_

And what an end it was, she thought wildly and unashamedly. What a fucking spectacular end she had met, where life met dreams and she sunk for good. _"That's one for the poetry books, boy-oh, what a show!"  
_  
And so Jamie drank until she hit the decks, hoping beyond hope that the voice wouldn't wake her up again. Not now, not ever. Because she was dead, god dammit, and she didn't want to wake up.

She didn't want to live.

* * *

While a stranger was dragging a dead body somewhere in the woods, William Gilbert was staring at freshly turned soil with a flask in a firm hand.

She should have stayed, she should have lived, but Jamie didn't want to anymore. She'd paid her dues, William Gilbert knew that in his heart of hearts, he'd known it that night in the kitchen and he'd known it before too. Her death, sad as it may be, was a blessing in disguise. So Billy was plenty sad, there was no getting away from that, but he wouldn't cry. Because it had been a mercy.

* * *

Jeremy remembered following Jamie into the woods, it was one of those rare moments in childhood that she wasn't with Tyler playing sports or surrounded by people who wanted oh so desperately to be her friend. Those were the happiest moments in his life, the ones where it was just him and Jamie, and he put them in a box in his head that was labelled clearly: me and my big sis.

He wasn't too good at sports, though that didn't bother Jamie none, and it ought to have done- because she was brilliant at them. She let him use her bat, a real nice swinger that was well-loved and frequently used, but a hard hitter overall. He couldn't swing for shit, or at least that's what Tyler had let him in on, Jamie just watched him with proud eyes that drowned him with warmth and affection. He could have missed the ball for all she cared, but he was taking an interest because he knew she liked baseball, and that meant more to her than any star athlete in the making.

But Tyler wasn't with her that day, because he was running a god awful fever that had him bedridden for a whole week, and Jeremy couldn't have been happier. So they went into the woods, and it hadn't occurred to him at the time to get scared, he always seemed a lot braver when Jamie was around- those monsters had better run, cos his big sister could hit a ball out of the park, and her right hook was just as deadly too. Just look at Randall Harrison's face if you want proof.

There was a crow on a low hanging branch.

He remembered learning about crows in class, and the kids talking incessantly about how they ate flesh off dead bodies. That had been a few years back, and he had always harboured a deep rooted fear of them since. Because what if they confused him for a dead person, what if they tried to eat him? It was outrageous and simplistic, and that's what made it so scary and almost plausible.

The bird let out a terrible cry, and it made him cry a bit too.

Jamie had taken his hand then, and she smiled in a way that meant she understood.

"Don't be ashamed, Jer, it's good to get scared sometimes. Means you're alive, that you ain't one of those monsters you're so 'fraid of." She spoke strongly, her hand planted firmly on his shoulder, and he forgot to be embarrassed about crying when he looked up at her.

He'd never thought about the difference between monsters and people, the clear divide had always been there but never defined. In his head it was painstakingly obvious, because people were good and monsters were bad, but it never occurred to him that part of being people, part of being good, was to be scared.

"Don't cry, Jer, never cry." Jamie murmured, wiping his tears away with a touch he hardly felt- it was that soft.

She smiled lovingly down at him, and he couldn't help but smile too.

He could remember that smile as clear as day even now, standing in front of his sister's grave with those very same woods only meters away.

She didn't call him a pussy, and somehow he knew that Tyler wouldn't have either- and not just because Jamie wouldn't let him. He couldn't explain it, but at the same time he suddenly understood why Tyler and Jamie were such good pals. Of course, Jeremy couldn't even imagine someone not wanting to be her friend back then, but his point still held strong.

Later in life, when childhood seemed to slip through his fingers somehow and those blessed monsters went away, he had the good sense to be scared of people too. He remembered one time when he was around twelve years old, they had seen a tramp dirtying the streets of their small town, a town he had always thought was impenetrable and safe.

Jamie didn't run, she didn't smile neither but she hadn't done much of that as of late anyways, and gave him a brisk nod. Handing him a cigarette, like he was just another person, she gave him the lend of a lighter and proceeded to light her own. They made small talk, and Jeremy was too busy gawping to remember what they said. He knew his sister smoked, she'd only been fourteen then if he was right but she'd been smoking for a while by then.

He was fifteen now, like Jamie might have been back then, and he'd be sixteen in October. He felt a hell of alot older then, as he stared at his sister's grave, and a terrible voice reminded him that she was only sixteen going on the brink of seventeen. He hadn't changed much from when he was twelve, not really, because if a hobo with a finger missing and a great grey beard came up to him looking for a cigarette he would still be a little frightened. But that was going to change, he decided then and there, because he was tired of being scared- no matter what Jamie said. So maybe it was time to be the monster he was so scared of as a child, because it couldn't be any worse than being a person, because people were worse than any monster could ever hope to be.

He saw dusty beams of sunlight, for a moment, just like the kind that used to stream through the cracks between the floorboards when he was underneath the porch. They did that a lot as kids, him and Jamie, but never Elena. She didn't like dust or dirt, or the bugs they'd find under there, but it had been their reprieve for as long as he could remember. Later on Jamie found reprieve by sitting on the porch steps instead.

He remembered the depression- he'd learnt that word a while back, and he found it startling and horrifying at just how often it applied to his life and surrounding- and suddenly he understood. Jamie sat on that porch for months, legs sprawled out untidily down the steps, staring off into blank space that was often accompanied by the smoke of a lit cigarette that smoked like a gun that had just been shot off. It reminded him of their Mom and how she got sometimes, and he wondered if Jamie took the pills that she took too, or if she had succumbed to the bottle just like her.

His Dad had called their uncle Billy an alcoholic sometimes, never outright but he had his own queer way of coming out with it. For his supposed drinking problem Jeremy had never seen him take a drink, not like Mom had at least. He wondered briefly if Uncle Billy was depressed like his Mom had been, like Jamie might have been after that summer.

Jamie didn't think Jeremy was weak, not even when he cried. And Elena might have been a little too soft, dainty even, but Jamie wouldn't call her weak either.

One memory suddenly became clearer than the others, something he'd long forgotten about that drifted with the tide.

Jeremy had had his heart set on camping, it was one of those things a boy ought to do with his Father, and he wanted to give it a go. His Dad had said no, and he'd spent the day sulking in his room. When he explained it all to Jamie she'd simply beckoned him onto his feet, pulling him into her room. She built him a blanket fort, at first he had been reluctant but she sure could build a good fort, so he eased up a little. When he expressed his desire to roast marshmallows over a campfire she'd walked five blocks to a convenience store and bought the biggest marshmallows she could find. She said they were the biggest and gooiest in town, and that they'd have no less than the best on their 'camping trip', even if it was only in her room.

She'd armed the floor with pillows and throws, and Jeremy wasn't sure if there was a pillow or blanket left in the house when they were done. When night came they opened the window and looked out at the stars, he didn't know their names but Jamie pointed each one out easily, she recited constellations and stars as easily as a housewife could the soap schedule on TV sans the magazines. And she took those marshmallows, the biggest and gooiest in the town, and she held a lighter up to them one at a time. They watched as they smoked and bubbled, the sugary outer shell burning before putting itself out, and they were the frothiest marshmallows Jeremy ever had.

And then he promptly burst into a fresh state of tears, because Jamie wasn't there to protect him from crows and monsters and he'd never eat frothy marshmallows lit by a lighter ever again.

* * *

" _ **Wake up!"**_

Jamie woke up choking on seawater, skin clammy and breathing ragged, feeling worse than ever before. It was early, and she had a little while left until her alarm clock would go off. Every inch of her body ached, and she could just about make out the mirror across her room. She looked just as bad as she felt. Stifling a groan, she rolled onto her back, which offered no relief, and stared up at the ceiling helplessly. Overwhelmed, she screwed her eyes shut tight, feeling the dampness of her cheeks and the hotness of tears against burning skin.

She knew her Dad hadn't come last night, and she'd heard the _clink_ of wine glass against bottle repeatedly as her Mom drank glass after glass, and she was worried about Tyler because his Dad had been on a bender and Mr. Tanner was on her ass for missing so much school, and… and… Jamie brushed the tears away angrily, her eyes dull and inundate. She was overwhelmed with pain and the faint feeling of sickness, with her Parents and friends and school, and she didn't want to face the day and it made her feel so pathetic.

Disgusted with herself, for crying and being weak, she was desperate to take a shower for some sort of semblance of control. She managed to find the will to get out of bed, leaving the comfort of her mattress and quilt behind with a deep rooted defeat. She couldn't miss school again, not when she had her meeting with Mr. Tanner about attendance, and she knew she had to make sure Tyler was okay.

She found her Mom in the bathroom, a concoction of fresh and old pungent vomit coating her shirt, the rest half in the toilet and half on the floor.

She ignored her Mom's drunken rambling and hauled her up, the vile and irrefutable stench of puke made her want to throw up herself, and she wasn't quite sure if it was water or bile at the back of her throat, but the acidic burn of it made her feel queasy and dizzy nonetheless. She could hardly hold her own weight, she thought desperately, how was she supposed to hold her Mother's too?

"C'mon, Mom, let's get you cleaned up, okay?" She murmured absently, eyes blank as she led her Mother down the barren hallways of the Gilbert home.

Dad hadn't been home in a while, he'd stopped pretending that they were a happy family a while back and hadn't been home much since, but sometimes he at least made the effort to participate in this sick game they had going on. Jeremy, thank God, was completely unaware. Dad was working, that's how he justified it, and he wasn't the one picking their drunken Mother off the bathroom floor. He still had a chance at normalcy, and for that Jamie was grateful.

Elena, on the other hand, had definitely noticed. But she didn't have the upper body strength from all those sports to pick their Mom up, and she didn't want to stick around and watch. So it fell to Jamie, and as the eldest she could muster up enough responsibility to do so, even if it made her want to hide away and not have to pretend for one minute that everything was okay.

Today was especially bad, because Jamie wasn't feeling all too hot and her Mom was in a state where she was chatty and restless and blissfully oblivious. She knew they'd have to walk to school today, and so she banged on her siblings doors as she walked past to rouse them from their beds.

"Lainey, Jer, get up! We're walking!" She hollered, breath shuddering as her Mom sunk in her arms before she pushed her back up, getting a better hold without having to make the grip painful. Quietly, almost to herself, she went on despairingly, "Because Mom's too boozy to care, and there's no one home upstairs, is there, Ma?"

Miranda let out pitiful giggles as Jamie brushed the hair stuck to her skin away from her forehead, knocking her knuckles gently against her head. "Nope, nobody's home."

They finally reached the right room, and she maneuvered herself and the bundle she called her Mother into the doorway with practiced ease. How many times had she done this messed up routine? She wondered, and a better question yet; How many more times would she have to?

Jamie pulled the sick stained shirt away from her Mother's sweat soaked skin, balling it up and chucking it into the laundry basket, pausing only to gag and dry heave herself. The tears were back, she realised suddenly, her mind dull and slow at work, and this time she let them fall. Slow as it may have been, she still had her wits about her, and as her stomach lurched she made it to the wastebasket in time.

Promptly ill, she spilled her guts into the rounded container, dreading the sound of painful bile hitting against hollow tin over the sound of her retching and the way it splashed up the sides of the metal can. Body shaking, tears steadily coming, she managed to push the bin away from her, wiping at her mouth weakly.

"Shit." She rasped out painfully, she couldn't seem to catch her breath, and she definitely couldn't catch a break.

Her Mom still sat on the bed dolefully, with a fresh shirt on and sitting exactly where she had left her.

"Fuck you, don't give me that look." Jamie bit out, cheeks warm from the spilling tears and flushed from embarrassment, "I'm ill, what's your excuse?"

She knew she'd get no response, and somehow that only made it worse.

When she got downstairs she didn't let on, because the only thing worse than babying her drunk Mom would to be babied herself by her kid brother. Elena always took longer to get ready in the mornings, even when Jamie had to clean their Mom up before she could get ready herself.

"C'mon, Jer, we're walking." Jamie spoke softly, nudging her little brother's arm. "Lainey, hurry up!"

Miranda was in the kitchen and Jamie hadn't even heard her leave her room, but she'd had to make several detours to make it to the can, so she wasn't that surprised that she had never heard her make her way downstairs. Feeling somewhat betrayed, because it was supposed to be their secret, Jer wasn't supposed to know, she sized her Mother up.

"You're drunk." Jamie held a level gaze, watching her Mother's sluggish, unbalanced movements, with steady eyes and an unimpressed look about her. "Mom, you're drunk and you're not even properly dressed."

"No-no, I… I can drive." Her hands smacked noisily against the marble countertops, reaching pitifully for the keys, and when she leaned in too much she toppled over.

"For Christ sake." Jamie swore, grabbing her by the arms as she folded into herself on the floor. "Jer, you and Lainey go ahead. Go to school, tell them you overslept, the alarm went off late."

She didn't know if he responded, but by the time she had gotten her Mom into a seat he was gone and the front door was still open.

Jamie spent the morning running her Mom a bath, and she watched with a certain detachment as her hands shook and she began to sink down into the water.

 _I could let her drown,_ Jamie thought blearily, _I could just sit and watch and do nothing to stop her, let's see how she likes it._

But instead, her hand caught her Mom's shaking one, and she spoke softly. "Here, let me."

It was midday by the time she had gotten her out of the bath and into her nightdress, and she settled her down onto the bed, her hand still clasped with her own, and she didn't let go until she was sure she was asleep.

She turned on the shower, and she couldn't tell you how long she simply sat there as the hot spray of water turned cold, or if it had been the shower or her own tears on her cheeks. Jamie wrapped her arms around her naked body, hiding her face and breathing unevenly, and she sat in the shower until she couldn't remember why she was there in the first place.

" _ **Wake up!"**_

Jamie had woken up to the sight of a frantic, wide eyed Elena.

"Jamie, what's wrong with Mom?"

A fourteen year old Jamie Gilbert stood in the doorway of her Parents bedroom, taking note of how one half of the bed hadn't been slept in while the other half was a mound of blankets and a still body.

This wasn't the first time it had happened, and it sure as hell wasn't going to be the last. Somehow, it all ended up on Jamie's shoulders, and she bore the weight with a tired look and barely concealed frustration. She was just a child, and she seemed to be the only one readily aware of that fact as she tried to shake some sense into her Mother all the while taking care of her siblings.

"Mom." Jamie called out, and she knew she was awake.

Sighing deeply, she spared a glance over her shoulder, Elena was peering into the room with frightful eyes and a look so terribly confused that Jamie took pity on her.

"Lainey, listen to me, will ya?"

She managed a nod, swallowing hard, and Jamie wondered if she could taste the sea water too.

"Get dressed, go downstairs. Breakfast will be on the table by the time you're ready, okay? Everything's just fine." It was soothing, but forceful enough to penetrate the stupor that had taken possession of her. "We'll be okay." We're always okay, is what she meant, because they had to be.

"Y-yeah. Okay." Elena let out breathily, nodding absently as she took sluggish steps towards her own bedroom. She was taking her time, Jamie knew, because there was doubt. What if breakfast wasn't really ready when she went downstairs? What if it wasn't okay?

Jamie understood, and when she set her eyes on her Mom again there was a striking resolve to her.

"Mom- Mom, get up."

"Go away, Jamie." It was just an exhale, a bone ragged breath, but Jamie heard her Mother all the same, and Jamie was angry and desperate and sad. But most of all, she was tired, and she wanted nothing more than to turn her back and leave the room for all the good this would do her. But she didn't.

She wanted a normal Mom, she pondered, except she had come to the realisation that there was no such thing as normal, and she remained bitterly aware of that as she tried to rouse her own from this daze she'd gotten herself into. It shouldn't have been her responsibility, but everything seemed to fall to her in the end.

"No, enough is enough." She let out in an angry peale, "You're going to get out of bed, and you're going to get dressed, because you're a God damned adult and you've got responsibilities and kids relying on you."

Jamie realised only then the extent of just how tired she was, and along with the exhaustion that racked her bones came the inexplicable jealousy and anger towards her Mother. She got to just sit there and watch and refuse to get out of bed while Jamie took care of everything, and she was so sick of it. She was damn well near her breaking point, she knew, and this might just be it.

"And they're scared, alright, Mom? They're real scared, because…. Because _you're_ scaring them. You've got all day to sit there feeling sorry for yourself, but I need you t- I'm _asking_ you, to just pretend, okay? Just pretend you give a shit about us, just for the morning. Please…" Her voice broke, and she felt her breath hitch involuntary.

She got no response from her comatose Mother, just a small lump in a sea of fabric, staring at the wall like there was something there. She'd been doing that for as long as Jamie could remember, staring into the distance like there was something there, but Jamie had learnt long ago that there was nothing there at all. Only her Mother's depression and her legal drug induced fog.

"Get out of bed!" Jamie snatched the blankets, grabbing at them desperately and angrily, and she hated the world and everything in it. And in that moment, she hated her Mom the most.

"Get out of bed, Mom!" She screamed, "Get out of bed!"

She wanted oh so desperately to cry, but she wasn't giving in, not today. Today- a daunting sight to be sure- Today Jamie was angry, and she'd remain angry at her Mom for years to come.

"Get up! Get out of bed, _Mom!"_ Jamie cried out, clutching the blankets to her chest helplessly before letting them fall to the ground once and for all, and her fists beat tirelessly against the mattress springs and made the bed jump and jolt as her Mother lay there all the while. " _Mom, get up!"_

" _Mom, please, please get up!"_

Jamie wouldn't forget that morning for years to come, because that was the day that she realised adulthood was a sham, and her Mother was a Goddamn liar.

" _ **Wake up!"**_

Her brother and sister rarely noticed their Father leaving the house, no matter if it was at odd times or predetermined intervals, but Jamie did. She'd watch him over the rim of the glass of orange juice she'd have with breakfast, grey eyes levelled hard, falling over the shape of him like practice. When he left she'd listen for the motor to start soon after the slamming of the front door and the car door on the drivers side. Once the crunch of gravel ran out she'd be at the window, watching, because she felt the dull need eating away at her, the one that told her she needed to watch him leave. And as he'd disappear at the end of the street, turning off at the corner, relief would wash over her, and she'd finally be able to relax for the first time in the morning. Like clockwork.

So she'd slump, eyeing her half eaten breakfast dismally. Jamie hated breakfast, she hated her Father too and she supposed that was a darn sight worse, but her Father hated a lot of stuff too so it wasn't all so bad of her. Like cold coffee and v- _those people_. Sharply, the image of Enzo entered her mind, and she pushed what was left of her breakfast away weakly. What was left of a pitiful appetite was gone entirely, expelled with the seawater that filled her lungs as the sun rose, and Jamie felt herself slipping.

Not slipping- sinking. _Swim, Jamie, swim. Swim for Christ sake!  
_  
Jamie let out a sigh, one tinged in apathy- practically dripping with it.

" _ **Wake up!"**_

Jamie didn't wake up because she hadn't gone to sleep yet, instead she'd spent the whole night slaving over countless essays and projects and readings long past due. Her Mom was going through another rough patch, but that was just her way of saying she never got out of bed without the promise of a bottle of wine or two.

Jamie didn't wake up that morning, but maybe that was because she was still sleeping, at least that's what it felt like, and she'd spend the rest of the day waking up again and again and again.

The real wake up was the new sense of life a line of cocaine gave her in the school toilets. The way the lights seemed to flare to life and the horrible ache and exhaustion gave way to a new lease of life. Sometimes she forgot to eat first, no matter how many times she told herself not to, because she wouldn't once she started. She'd smoke countless cigarettes and drink as much booze as she liked, the pretty white powder was like a shot of whiskey to the sinuses anyway, but she wouldn't eat, and she wouldn't stop. Oh, no, once she started she wouldn't stop for a long while coming. And the days seemed to last forever, the night never ending, and every time she needed a bump or another line she'd do so greedily, licking the credit card she used to cut it in the first place because waste not want not.

It seemed like she had only just jolted awake when they slammed her head down against the hood of the cruiser, her arms twisted painfully behind her as the handcuffs _clicked_ shut, the sound loud and jarring and all too much like a prison sentence.

Half the school saw Jamie Gilbert being hauled out of there in a state official cruiser, and they wished they had her singing The Clash's ' _I Fought The Law and The Law Won'_ lyrics at the top of her lungs on tape.

She was still singing it in the cell, and she couldn't remember anyone telling her to shut up or if they even had.

Jamie woke up when her Mom came to collect her, only out of surprise that she had managed to get her sorry ass out of bed all on her own. And if she had known all it would take was to get caught at school with a large quantity of coke, a copious amount of coke if she were being honest, then she would have gotten herself caught a long time ago. Some part of her acknowledged that she got caught on purpose, because for once she didn't want to be the one who had to deal with everything. The saddest part, even sadder than having a lowkey coke addiction and getting caught sniffing it on purpose in the school toilets, was that it worked.

They stayed silent the entire way home, Jamie had gotten off with just a caution and a minor suspension that wouldn't even make it's way onto her record. She was lucky, or so she had been told, but as the coke wore off she didn't feel so lucky at all. The white powder had turned every muscle in her body to cement, her jaw was tensed and her teeth were clenched without her being aware of it, and her fists were closed so tight that her nails were drawing blood. One more line- One more line was one line too many, and she'd be vomiting until the sun came up tomorrow, but she didn't know that- and she'd make it through the day.

"Jamie, I can't believe you." Miranda Gilbert spoke only after they had taken their seats on the sofa, and it was like she had magically forgotten the countless hours she had spent in bed, refusing to talk or move. "What on earth did you think you were doing? Cocaine, you were snorting cocaine in the girl's bathro-"

And then, Jamie woke up for the last time that day, really woke up, because she couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"I changed your shirt when you got your own vomit all over it." Jamie spoke softly, but her Mom shut her trap all the same, "I washed your hair because your hands were shaking too much to do it yourself."

Jamie looked at her Mom, really looked, and she didn't like what she saw, not one bit.

"I took your kids to school everyday, I fucking fed them and watered them and made sure they did their Goddamn homework!" Her fist struck against the coffee table, and she took no satisfaction in the way her Mom jumped. "You've been drinking your life away, and that's fine by me, okay? But don't you dare, don't you fucking dare get on _my_ ass about _my_ behaviour, _Mom_." She spoke mockingly, head lulling to her chest as she laughed softly.

"I took a line of coke to get me through the day, because in case you haven't noticed I've been picking up _your_ slack." Her finger jabbed in her direction forcefully, piercing through the air violently only to come to a sudden halt, but her Mom was staring at her wide eyed all the same, looking so scared and docile and so maddenly _innocent_ that it made Jamie's blood boil.

" _Shit,_ when's the last time I slept? When the hell do I even get a chance to do homework? And you- You've got the _audacity_ to rag on me about the semantics of drug use when you're popping xanax like it's a fucking party over here?!" Jamie was roaring now, and she didn't realise she was on her feet, couldn't remember when she stood up, just that she was standing now. " _Huh, Mom? Huh?_ Is that what you're telling me?"

Jamie was breathing heavily, panting down sweet mouthfuls of stale air, it was too dry and her tongue was thick and wet with saliva that seemed too heavy and made her feel like she was choking.

"I'm…" Jamie looked at her Mother almost hopeful, but she couldn't seem to muster up the strength to invest such hope in her, "I'm going to bed."

Jamie laughed, loudly and off beat, and she carried on laughing until it turned to unruly sobs and she was on the ground.

" _ **Wake up!"**_

Jamie woke up on a sofa, and she could have sworn that she'd passed out at a bar.

"Oh, thank God!" A voice called from her left, eerily sarcastic, startling her awake for real. "I thought you'd never wake up. Do you know how long you've been asleep? I've been waiting for hours."

She made a noise in the back of her throat, shifting her aching limbs. Words couldn't describe the hellfire of a hangover she had going on, mostly because her brain was so clogged up with muck and fog that she couldn't think straight.

He was staring at her with twinkling eyes, this stranger, and he watched her with unconfined glee.

"So you _are_ real." He said, and it sounded like he was talking to himself, which was just fine by her, because in the fuzzy subconscious of her mind, muted by alcohol and sleep, she knew this wasn't real. "Because I'm going to be level with you," he leaned in, voice dropping slightly and a grin touching his lips, looking all too much like the big bad wolf, "For a minute there I was doubting it."

Just as quickly as he got close, practically touching foreheads, he threw himself back, landing in the armchair with a dull _thud!_ and...

She almost winced, she could have swore she heard him crack the rear of his cranium against the fine varnished wood of the chair, and from the way he flinched she supposed he had. Her head just hurt thinking about it, accompanied by the faint pounding that incessantly got louder and louder. She was severely hungover, well and truly hungover, and now she was hallucinating because this guy sure as hell didn't exist. And if he did, she was sure he acquired brain damage after that hell of a hit to the back of his head, because it didn't sound pretty at all.

"I thought I was going _crazy_ or something!" He cackled, and in her hung over state she couldn't keep up with his rapid switch of personalities. Maybe he had hit his head harder than she had initially thought. "Oh, wait! I haven't introduced myself yet. _Manners_ , who need them, right?" He chided sarcastically, still mocking and theatrical, rolling his eyes dramatically.

Putting on a cheerful, almost charming smile, he righted himself in his seat. Jamie blinked, watching him in confusion. Who the hell was this guy?

"Anyway, I'm Kai. What's your name?"

* * *

 **(AN: Aaaaand I've introduced Kai! Which is exciting all round, dontcha think? I love the idea of him trying to be all cool and condescending when he meets Jamie only to hit his head on something and ruin the whole thing, but at the same time I reckon he'd carry on his act because the show must go on!**

 **Just to clarify, Jamie is well and truly dead. But this is the vampire diaries, which means that death doesn't equate to the end.)**


	9. Chapter 9, Let the Girl Live

**Sink or Swim | Chapter Nine, Let The Girl Live**

Pack yourself a toothbrush dear  
Pack yourself a favorite blouse  
Take a withdrawal slip  
Take all of your savings out  
'Cause if we don't leave this town  
We might never make it out  
I was not born to drown  
Baby come on  
 _The Lumineers, Sleep On The Floor_

* * *

It was a rare occasion indeed when Dr. Wes Maxfield didn't have the tape recorder on, he wasn't a spectacular conversationalist by all means but at least his voice drowned out the meticulous sounds of the inner-workings of said device. Sometimes, while being cut open from groin to sternum or having numerous 'medical' procedures induced against his will, he'd phase in and out of a conscious and semi-conscious state. In those semi states he'd become more attune to some senses in order to dull others and escape the pain, such as hearing the electric buzz of wiring or the rusty spiel of old cogs and gears or the scrape of tape against plastic wheels. The lights overhead would become blinding, there was bursts of colours in his peripheral vision, flashes and strobes and glimpses of something that wasn't even there. He could feel each follicle in the tips of his fingers as they brushed against fabric, feeling each and every constitution, the weaves that were woven in the infrastructure, the coolness of the metal table or the grain of the finish. Anything to keep his mind off the pain, to trick himself into believing that nothing was real.

Enzo scarcely understood modern technology, and most of these sessions consisted solely of primitive methods accompanied by shiny metal tools that even he was familiar with. Technology seemed so daunting, what with his torturers apparent liking to it and the god awful sounds they managed to produce- he had come to the conclusion that he could do just as well without it.

"What did you think of Dr. Gilbert?" Dr. Maxfield enunciated quite suddenly, absently, seemingly out of the blue, but Enzo could see his mind working at a hundred miles a minute.

It was a quick and sudden incursion of pangs to the chest and an acute ache that filled him from the pit of his stomach and blossomed outwards, an onslaught of images and sounds and flashes. Most coherent were the emotions and affiliations that flared to life, the ache of his gums at the mere mental image of Grayson Gilbert and the sadness and desperation he felt for Jamie as she flitted through his mind. In that moment, at the mention of the man he despised so wholly and acrimoniously, Enzo felt feral.

All the while Dr. Maxfield peered at him knowingly, a calculating and cold look in his eyes that spoke of cruel joy and irrefutable satisfaction, both sickening and delightful- so primitively _human_. Hunger blazed to life, burning and searing so abruptly and demanding his attention, he was devoted to blood lust and anger and pain. It hardly dulled, not even when Dr. Maxfield looked away and went back to polishing his instruments.

"Perhaps you've noticed my use of past tense, Dr. Gilbert is very much dead." There was nothing in his voice, it was empty and aseptic. "It's a shame, really. He did do some spectacular work, though he failed Augustine in the end."

Enzo felt an immense pleasure shoot through him, his nerves seemed to stand on end and were so suddenly hypersensitive to everything around him that it all seemed surreal, and he imagined vividly and unashamedly the gruesome ways in which Grayson Gilbert could have met his end- all very bloody and slow and painful.

Promptly his gaze sharpened, "You played your part in that mishap, didn't you? Befriending the girl, managing to escape…"

The only thing that wasn't clinical about a man like Wes Maxfield was his personal vendetta against vampires, that much was real. He was a cold man, cold and unforgiving, the natural state of a man with a degree. A doctor through and through.

 _Jamie,_ his mind screamed, so loud and violent that his head felt like it was going to split down the middle. His little Jamie, the one who watched on in horrified silence as her Father butchered him on the operation table, her eyes never leaving his own while he was under the knife, not even once.

He had thought of her as his angel, and it had always left a bittersweet taste, Lorenzo St. John had never had much luck with angels or that of God. Or companionship for that matter…

First there had been Lily, and he had been young and sickly and blind, but he had thought for sure she was an angel. No one had ever been so kind to him before, no one had dared be kind to one who would surely be taken by the consumption so soon anyhow. And she had been an angel, an angel of death. And she had left him, all alone and unaware of what he was. That's when he learnt just how big and bad the world really could be, because even with the consumption he had had some inexplicable and poorly misinformed hope. He still held onto what was left of it, but it seemed to be escaping his grasp bit by bit.

He remembered Damon Salvatore, the one who betrayed him. Could see him sometimes in the too bright light when the warmth came over him, and he could almost feel the lick of flames against his skin like the hot metal of the odd torture devices that cut through his organs like butter. They were supposed to be friends, and no man was meant to get left behind. He supposed Damon took some of that hope with him.

Maggie James, who loved and left him- that had been his own doing, his own will over hers. But he mourned what they had lost all the same. She had been so pretty and kind and oblivious, and he had wanted so little that he had been shocked at how badly the whole ordeal had hurt. She had started something deep within him, something he wasn't all too aware of but could feel nonetheless, and he missed that feeling most of all. He missed her.

And Jamie, his sweet Jamie who was too young and too old. She had been an angel alright, or at least the closest he would ever get to one. With no bad will toward him and a smart head on her she had kept his company for the better half of his stay with Dr. Grayson Gilbert, and he hadn't let her Father's standing or actions warp his image of her. She was her own person, with her own thoughts and feelings and opinions and she had treated him kindly. Humane. And she had never left him, she had been torn away from him violently and wretchedly. Her kind smile and the depth of her thoughts ripped away, the closeness he felt and the way in which she called him by his name.

" _I call you Enzo, don't I?"_

" _All my friends do."_

"What was her name again? Tinkerbell, was it? Of course, she went by Jamie, for obvious reasons." Still Dr. Maxfield refused to look at him, and Enzo supposed there was no need for him to do so. Just by watching him he knew the affects, he didn't need to see it so much as _feel_ it. "It's a shame, really."

He looked up from his tools, staring absently ahead, "The progeny child that Grayson always spoke so fondly of, the one coerced by a vampire, _dead…_ Gone with the blink of an eye."

Everything stopped, and Enzo screwed his eyes tight shut. His Jamie the angel, dead, and he supposed she was really an angel now. Except nothing so good would be bestowed on a little girl so young and kind and new to the world. Especially not one who learnt the ways of the world well before her time and had embraced it with her all.

He remembered how she always used to wear her hat backwards, how her favourite colour was blue-green like the sea and she liked sports and music. She took an interest in science and history and she knew more about what his body was experiencing than he ever did. She would read to him sometimes, talk about technology and the advances made in new age movements, what was going on in her life and funny anecdotes when he was feeling blue. There was never a dull moment, he didn't have the chance to feel gloomy with her rounded face and toothy smile peering at him. He had seen a lot in those eyes, and it had scared him more than the doctors ever could.

All the knowledge and knowing in her eyes was gone, and he imagined them staring unseeingly as the dirt covered her black shroud and pallor face.

"Let's continue with the procedure, shall we?"

And he wished he had been fully conscious that session, that he could feel everything Dr. Maxfield was doing to him, but instead he saw Jamie. Unseeing eyes peering at him from behind the trolley, like when they had first met. And that hurt more than anything that was being done to him physically.

* * *

It was mid afternoon and hot shafts of sunlight bathed grey skin in warmth, and for a moment he could almost pretend that it wasn't a dead body laying there.

" _Let the girl live, Nathan."_ He recoiled suddenly and violently, wanting so desperately to cry out. " _Let the girl live before death finds her."_

The spirits whispered, shrill and breathy and utterly dead. It made his skin crawl at the brush of a voice against his ear, or the murmur of wind against clammy skin, and his gaze set its sights on the dead girl laying there. They told him what to do, they told him to wait, and he scoured books for some sort of peace of mind.

"Tell me what to do." He pleaded, "Tell me how to help her!"

" _When he wakes let the girl live."_

* * *

"Anyway, I'm Kai, what's your name?"

Jamie blinked, everything was too fine and sharp and blurry at the same time, and she felt dreadfully woozy. "Jamie... my name is Jamie."

"Well, Jamie, should I be worried?" This stranger- _Kai,_ her mind supplied helpful and wary, _his name is Kai and he likes talking._ Yeah, that was an understatement, "I mean, I did find you trying to drown yourself in alcohol. Jameson? _Nice!_ You've got taste, you can't just die from any old bottle!"

He was smiling but it was… _off_. There was something not right about Kai, something not right with his smile and the look in his eyes. There was something strange about his gaze, how there seemed to be nothing behind it, it was empty and unfeeling and it set Jamie's nerves on end. She found his gaze troubling, and his vacant smile was almost chilling.

"Not to be rude, but-"

He interrupted her so suddenly and loudly that Jamie jumped a little, and his cheery falsetto sounded so false to her fragile ears that she wanted wince. "Oh, well that's a relief, I hate rudeness."

For someone who sure liked to talk a lot he wasn't that good at it...

"Okay, yeah okay, uh... not to be rude, as we've already established you hate rudeness, but where the hell are we?" She spoke slowly, carefully, eyeing him like he was about to implode any second now.

"You mean you don't know?" He'd lost his smile, back to serious and a little chilling. This was perhaps the closest she had gotten to seeing his true self, when his mask slipped momentarily and he lost his smile.

 _"Why so serious?"_ Her mind crowed, an eery impression of Heath Ledger's Joker evading her senses. Funny, he was dead too. She remembered the vague sense of sadness that had washed over her at his death, one that had refused to budge throughout the movie. The Dark Knight had been brilliant and sad, and she hadn't been able to rave about it like everyone else in the movie theater.

Jamie shrugged, "Am I supposed to know why I'm here?"

And then his smile made a miraculous return, "No. No, I guess not…" He spoke absently.

Jamie did some of her best speaking around a cigarette, and that's just what she needed in that strange and confusing moment. "Do you mind?" She motioned to an open pack she had on her lap, flicking the lighter to life as she did so.

This stranger, this alien Kai that was so obscene his very being offended her every sense, nodded. He giggled shrilly, but she wasn't sure if she had simply imagined the sound- it was terrifying, even worse than _The voice._

 _Remember Enzo? Oh, boy! He sure had a set of lungs on 'im, before your dear ole da cut them out that is.  
_  
Jamie lit up her cigarette with shaky hands, sucking in nicotine and tar like there was no tomorrow. _Speak_ , Jamie thought through the muck and the fog and the hangover, _say something, anything._ "So you're the welcoming committee?"

"I'm the only one here, hot stuff!"

Jamie levelled him with a stare, one that meant business, and she realised he was serious, deadly and cheerfully serious. "Well, _fuck_."

Isolation was a terrifying prospect, but the idea that she'd have to spend the rest of her days with this guy who liked the sound of his own voice a bit too much was especially horrifying. The idea that he liked his own voice because he had been the only one around to hear it until recently filled her head, and she didn't need a mirror to know she had gone pale.

"Wait." Jamie spoke suddenly, logic grasping the reins and taking control once more (and all was right in the world again- not!). "Then how the hell did you know how to find me? I can't have been here more than a couple of days…"

"Well, Jamie, I'm glad you asked." Kai replied cheerfully, and she almost missed the way he was touching the back of his head tentatively- the move carefully disguised by stretching his arms and resting them behind his head, the action so clean and smooth it was almost a blatant lie, just like everything else about him. "See, the answer is simple, I felt the magic."

And then all the logic was knocked out of her like the wind was knocked out of her chest.

* * *

Buddy hated the kicked puppy dog look, hated it with a passion. Turns out Jeremy was real good at it though. He wasn't just some junkie small-town trash, of that Buddy remained all too aware, he was a kid with actual, honest to god, real-life problems. Like dead parents and an even deader sister, one that's body got lost in the lake.

So Buddy somehow mustered enough goodness in him to treat the kid better, goodness he didn't know he had in him. He reasoned that it was all because he knew Jamie, had liked her well enough, and Jeremy wasn't so bad. So he showed the kid how to smoke, not even with money on his mind whilst doing it, just the dull sense of pity that washed over him every time Jeremy hesitated or got teary, because Buddy knew it wasn't because of the smoke, no matter what the kid said. He had remained painfully aware of it all through the summer.

Jeremy looked sullen, absent as he stared ahead at fuck all. Buddy remembered Jamie doing the same thing sometimes, and it scared him.

"You good, kid?" He said it hesitantly, not exactly sure as to how to speak to him.

He nodded remotely, just the slightest inclination of the head, and that meant the dope was doing its thing. That was reassuring, if nothing else, because you could always count on dope. When nothing else in life was working, at least there was that.

* * *

It was time to grieve, and the time was running out, but Jeremy was spiralling and Jenna was still lost, and Elena just stood there and watched. She wasn't Jamie, she couldn't just hold her head up and lead them all in the right direction, put others ahead of her own thoughts and feelings. She couldn't talk to Jeremy about the drugs, she barely noticed half the time anyway, and she couldn't let Jenna in on a semblance of routine, as far as she was concerned without her parents there was none.

The difference was that Jamie thought about Elena, and Elena... well, she didn't think about anyone but herself.

Elena hated lies, and Elena lied to herself everyday.

She pretended she didn't hear those noises in the basement, and then those noises went away and she didn't have to pretend anymore. She pretended she didn't hear her parents arguing, that she couldn't see Jamie sinking or her Mom hiding away, and now she didn't have to worry about that either. Elena should be happy, she didn't have anything to worry about, not anymore. But she still went on pretending, because if Jeremy didn't have a drug problem and Jenna wasn't in a permanent state of panic and confusion then Elena could almost pretend everything was perfectly fine.

 _"Everything's going to be fine, Lainey."_ Jamie would say, and it was the truth, because Jamie made things fine. She didn't sit around under false pretences, she got things done.

Elena would mourn her parents like they did nothing wrong, and she'd mourn the idea she had of a happy family that fit the mould like it had existed in the first place. And she'd miss Jamie most of all, because Jamie had done nothing wrong, and that was the truth. Through all the lies, the supposed thing she hated the most, she didn't have to lie to herself when it came to her twin.

That might just have been the biggest lie, but Elena didn't know that.

* * *

 **(AN: In the reviews I noticed people were wondering how Kai found Jamie so quick (or Bonnie and Damon at all) and the best answer I could come up with is magic. Kai syphons magic and so it's sort of implied that he can feel it… or at least feel a powerful surge like I guess would happen when people enter the prison world. And yes, the voices will be explained eventually (though someone's already guessed *cough* that was brilliantly perceptive of you *cough*).**

 **If Kai is any way, shape or form out of character this chapter please remember he hasn't had company in like… fifteen years at this point. He's not going to be fully Kai-like at the beginning but he's getting there for sure.**

 **I've also seen people saying they were confused, and to an extent that was the whole point. I mean, there's a reason why the childhood and death sequences were so fragmented, but now that we're in more chartered territory (though some of it is dreadfully unchartered and I'm still working out the finer details) it should clear up! Sorry if it's been an inconvenience but at least it was intended, right? Or maybe I suck at writing, either is a viable option.)**


	10. Chapter Ten, Black Hole Sun

**Sink Or Swim | Chapter Ten, Summer's Over**

Stuttering, cold and damp  
Steal the warm wind tired friend  
Times are gone for honest men  
And sometimes far too long for snakes  
In my shoes, a walking sleep  
And my youth I pray to keep  
Heaven sent hell away  
No one sings like you anymore

 _Black Hole Sun, Soundgarden_

 **(AN: R.I.P Chris Cornell. Guns N' Roses sang Black Hole Sun at Slane and it broke my fucking heart. Rock on up in heaven, man.)**

 **WARNING: THIS IS JUST A FILLER CHAPTER, FULL OF LITTLE KAI AND JAMIE MOMENTS**

* * *

Kai called it the prison world, and so even though it wasn't hell it was close enough. It was a creation of the Gemini coven, of which Kai was a member and outcast respectively. A coven was a family of witches and warlocks, that were very much real- but Kai was something different altogether. As Jamie understood it, a witch or warlock could generate and sustain their own magic naturally, but Kai couldn't produce magic, instead he had to find a source to tap into. He siphoned it, basically, typically from another person with magic but he didn't go into the semantics of objects with magical properties- Jamie made a note to find out more about the subject at a later date during less pressing times. That's also how he found her, when she was placed in the prison world (she still wasn't sure about the details, the how and why, but she'd crack that later on) there was a sudden rupture, a rush of magic, and she supposed it felt like a crack addict on an almighty high to a siphon. She'd ask about that too.

Jamie saw the way he looked at her while talking about siphoning, the empty look in his eyes gave way to a kind of malicious glint, a gleam that made her very much aware of bad intentions, and she came to the conclusion that she has her very own reservoir of magic. Which might explain how she, a human in all rights, happened upon the prison world in her afterlife. It was a hypothesis she wasn't entirely sure she had the means to test safely, but if nothing else she had time on her hands and a keen taste for knowledge.

That was another thing she pondered, the permanence of the prison world and the clause. Spells, she figured, had to have some sort of failsafe or latch. If they could put someone in here then surely there was a way out, a complex, seemingly impossible or highly improbable way out.

She ran through the variables in her mind almost as if on autopilot, so like her Father that it scared her a little. The independent, dependant and controlled variables were suddenly swimming around in her mind, a haze of facts and figures and possible variations appearing. It almost made her feel happy, a sense of normalcy flooding her senses all of a sudden. She had a hypothesis to work out, and that made her feel like her old self- the innately curious child that got cut short much too soon.

The cause and effect relationship between Kai and Magic properties was fascinating to say the least, and she never stopped for a moment as if to ponder the existence of magic. It was real, as real as Enzo surviving being cut upon and regenerating at at a seamless pace.

She imagined a whole new paradigm applied here, to the prison world, and the supernatural world pertained in normalcy.

Christ, if only Elena got the grand reveal like Jamie did (though enduring Uncle John's ranting and raving about vampires wasn't something she'd wish to inflict on anyone) then Jamie would have gladly shared all this with her. She kind of missed having someone to tell her thoughts and ideas with, since Dad could barely look at her without criticism anymore and all. And even though Elena wouldn't understand one bit of what she was saying she'd still listen, ask stupid questions maybe but listen all the same.

She was reading the newspaper again, for want of something to do. Kai had insisted on cooking breakfast, and from the way he kept looking back at her there was something in the paper he wanted her to acknowledge. Jamie had found it on the first page, but she wanted to let Kai stew for a bit, she didn't like being played and that was exactly what he was trying to pull. He'd underestimated her, and she supposed after years of bickering with siblings she simply wanted to be the one calling the shots. She hated it when Elena told her what to do, and she refused to boss Jeremy around simply because he was her partner in crime, so she was sort of revelling in taking control from Kai. It was childish, she knew that, and it ignited some sort of spark in her chest and she felt light- like she was floating.

She couldn't imagine how lonely he must have felt for those fifteen years in solitary, and luckily she didn't have to. Where she had never been co-dependant on Elena she knew she'd have to rely on Kai and vice versa, and that was a scary prospect.

"So, Kai... short for Malachai." Jamie mused all of a sudden, and the pancake Kai was flipping flopped onto the counter. She hid her smile behind the paper. "With a name like that it's like they expected you to be evil."

He narrowed his eyes, frowning down at her. "You knew already!" He accused, a highly strung whine coming across his voice. "That's cheating, Jamie."

"If it makes you feel any better, Jamie is my middle name." She mused, "My real name is Tinkerbell."

Eyes scanning over the article, flickering lazily from the left to the right, she let out a huff of air. "Well, come on out with it then. Why'd you do it? I want details."

"They decided I wasn't worth it." Kai grinned, a mocking sort of grin that wasn't funny in any way shape or form. "Called me an abomination and stuck me in here, it really hurt my feelings."

Jamie nodded, refusing to let herself pity him, "I mean, to be fair, you did butcher the majority of your siblings."

"What part of they hurt my feelings did you not understand?"

Jamie nodded, "As good as a reason as any, I s'pose."

He nodded earnestly, shoving a huge stack of pancakes in front of her, practically drowned in syrup. She didn't complain, simply cutting into it with her knife and fork, feeling the way the blade sank through the fluffy goodness of the pancakes with ease. Kai could cook, alright, and she was suddenly painfully aware of Elena and Jeremy's lack of cooking prowess. Meaning, they found a way to screw up microwave meals for chrissake. God help them, especially with Aunt Jenna in the kitchen.

It had never really dawned on her before just how much they needed Jamie for… Well, practical skills, for a start. Along with emotional support and caring for their general needs, and everything that came in between. It was worrying, to say the least, but she decided to be selfish and focus on Kai.

"I have a twin, you know." He piped up suddenly, never having been one for the quiet- at least from what Jamie could tell, after having known him for less than twenty four hours that is. "A real do-gooder. You wouldn't like her."

It was an offhanded comment, but she knew he wanted her full and undivided attention at all times, hence her dragging out the paper spectacle. It was honestly kind of fun, the sibling rivalry she never really had with Elena seemingly sparked to life. She supposed it was down to the fact that she had no responsibilities here, nobody holding her back or dragging her beneath the current.

"Oh, you'd _despise_ my twin sister, she's a real stickler for the rules." Jamie pointed a syrup coated fork in his direction, grinning roguishly and childishly- and she revelled in it.

"We both have twin sisters then." He mused, gasping so suddenly and over the top that he nearly choked on his pancakes (and if it weren't for the overzealous syrup coating the fluffy pastry he would have, but instead he felt the sticky warmth glide down his throat, coating it in sugary syrup, and it was nowhere near as pleasant as it sounded). "It's like it was meant to be!"

Kai was leaning over the table, suspended midair, hovering over her precariously and balanced on nothing but good will and the unstable wooden shaft between the stools leg that looked like it was about ready to give in at any given moment. His gaze was mockingly intense and wicked to the core, and Jamie chortled good naturedly, deciding that she could get used to this, moreover that she _liked_ this guy.

"You're right, Mali, it was fate all along." She spoke languidly, shoving another forkful of food into her mouth. He really was a good cook.

He collapsed back into his seat, his whole body slumping down with a thud! That was both fluid and graceful yet terribly inelegant all at once. "That's what I've been saying, Jamiebell."

They managed to finish their breakfast without anyone choking to death, though they had a few close calls. Jamie had never seen someone snort syrup out of their nose before.

* * *

One thing was strikingly clear as Jamie watched the sun begin to set from behind the car window, and that was that Kai was absolutely obsessed with grunge. It had been a flurry of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden- and so much more. And Jamie fucking loved it.

All her life she'd been listening to everything she could get her hands on, dragging Tyler around to listen to a bear up portable radio or Jeremy in her bedroom with a record player booming loudly, and anyone in her car was subjected to her diverse and complex music taste from the vintage cassettes she had been collecting from an early age.

Listening to grunge with Kai in a car was fun, and she was content to just sit there and ramble with the broken boy and sing to the words randomly. It was the most relaxing feeling in the world.

"Malachai, fitting don't you think?" Kai goaded, "Tinkerbell's just an awful name."

"It's like they expected you to be evil." Jamie reminded him with a snort, nudging him with her elbow. "Me, on the other hand, well... I must have been a disappointment all round."

"You can be the light to my darkness." He dropped in conversationally, "I like being bad, and liking yourself is important you know."

Jamie nodded slowly, "I like myself well enough, but self improvement is also important. For example, you're a sociopath with evil tendencies, and when you went to town you sure went the full mile. It's actually kinda admirable if you think about it."

"Well, _aw shucks!"_ Kai grinned, slamming his hands on the steering wheel, swerving to the right only to pull it back a bit too sharp. "I'm flattered, doll. Thanks."

"No, thank you, Kai." Jamie placed a hand to her chest, fluttering her hand in a fanning motion, mock swooning with blinking grey eyes and a snarky smile. "You've made me see the light, before you I didn't know what I was going to do! but thanks to your little talk... well, I'm a new man- woman, I mean. It was inspirational, truly."

Her fake earnest had him laughing, and he threw an arm over her despite the steering wheel.

"Glad I could be of service, all in a day's work, yadda yadda yadda- hey, wanna grab a bite to eat? I'm starved."

And just like that the conversation was over, and Jamie nodded. She could do with some food, and it was getting kind of late anyhow.

Black Hole Sun came on, and Jamie turned the dial to full volume.

"Your grunge selection is admirable, you were so fucking right about this being fate, because there has to be a reason as to how we both have amazing taste in music." She groaned as the song started, sinking into her seat and watching the world go by in pure bliss. "This is heaven, this is all I want in life- or, afterlife. Sincerely."

"The music Gods have blessed us with divine selection." Kai agreed solemnly, deadly serious. "Tell me, Jamiebell, how does grunge fare in the future?"

"Don't get me started on Kurt Cobain, just don't. I might cry, I've only had fifteen years to mourn and I'm still not over it."

"Imagine how I feel- I've been stuck here! There was no closure!"

* * *

Kai could watch a movie, but he had to be in the mood for those kinds of things, otherwise he'd get antsy as hell and his knee would be bobbing and his head lulling. Jamie didn't mind so much though, because Elena was terrible at movies and Jeremy preferred video games. She liked movies, she really did, not so much because of what's going on in the screen but the story always got her. She'd immerse herself in it, and it'd bug her for days, but god did she love it.

They were straight beneath the projector, it had been Kai's bright idea to sit directly under it so that he could make shapes and animals in the light when he was bored. Jamie thought it was an alright idea, and it got a smile or two out of her when one was particularly well timed or it just looked good. Kai liked that about her, that she was easy going, because she'd never complain about nothing.

One thing that annoyed Kai, something of which he had never voiced, was Jamie's bastard hybrid dialect. She was all over the place with big words, slang and double negatives- and sometimes it was hard to wrap his head around. She did it on purpose, though, and he liked his fair share of wordplay just fine.

They were watching Christine, a Stephen King classic, at Jamie's insistence. He didn't mind, because a killer car _was_ kind of cool. And seeing Jamie absolutely lose it when the car (" _Christine_ , Mali- Her name is _Christine_!") radio played _Keep a knockin'_ by Little Richard as that kid tried to open the door. He had to admit, it was pretty funny, and Christine had _style_ , he'd give her that.

"Honestly, I can't believe you never got to see _Scream_ , it's brilliant! They make fun of every horror movie cliche while brutally murdering everyone, it's right up your street!"

 **(AN: Okay, so this is the more childish and carefree Jamie Gilbert! I pushed this chapter out because 1. Chris, and 2. Exams. My first exam is technically today (it's 2 am as I am uploading this, oops) so I figured I'd basically use this… shitpost, nautical term, to sustain the livelihood of this fanfic. It's also rushed as hell.**

 **I just saw PotCSR and I'm still mad my childhood is over, also not enough Jack. I want to write a PotC fic so desperately now, because who doesn't love Jack Sparrow?**

 **I'm also going to go see GNR AGAIN because they were so brilliant at Slane that I just couldn't resist the temptation. I'm a whore for rock n roll, what can I say?**

 **Anyway, exams exams exams and more exams. I'll see you guys on the flipside, when exams are over and I am back in control (hopefully). Sorry for shitty quality but I might edit this chapter later, gotta sleep or revise or… something. Oh well.)**


	11. Chapter Eleven, Summer's Over

**Sink Or Swim | Chapter Eleven, Summer's Over**

Flashback to 1999,  
It's the summer,  
Not a cloud in the sky.  
Present day,  
Things have changed,  
Summer's over  
And it rains here every day.

 _Lower than Atlantis, Another Sad Song_

 _ **(AN: WE ACTUALLY MADE IT TO THE PILOT EPISODE OF SEASON ONE, OH MY DAYS. aaaaaand It's still not a full episode. I'm lazy. Exams are over and I'm looking for a job. I saw GNR live twice. Sorry I'm shit at writing. And enjoy this chapter. I'm working on my Hunger Games fic even though the prologue was posted waaay back. I hate myself.)**_

* * *

Elizabeth Forbes sat back in her office chair with a sigh, the firm leather seat squeaking in protest as the wheels gave way a little against the hardwood floor. Her blonde cropped hair was sticking to her flushed face, the air con blaring but doing no good, and she stared at the ceiling in hopes of avoiding the manilla folders sitting on her desk. It was marked in black marker pen, the words seemingly screaming out at her from the off-white paper and jumping off the page, giving her a headache.

'UNSOLVED CASES'.

The Gilbert family case was at the bottom, because there was an irrefutable hope that she'd never have to look at it again, but with the school year beginning she simply couldn't help herself. She was a woman, a Mother and a hard worker foremost, and the fact that her daughter was currently getting ready for the start of the semester was slowly eating away at her. Jamie Gilbert had only been Caroline's age after all, and she remembered the terribly awkward conversations that happened across the dinner table when Caroline brought the girl up. She had tried her best to listen, but after working on the case herself she couldn't bring herself to hear it, and she wondered idly about her own Daughter and the sudden realisation that she wasn't a permanent fixture on this earth and how it had affected her. She was strong though, and she'd carry on as if nothing ever happened. Hiding her resentment, just like she had during the divorce, only for it to pop back up again at unfortunate times- like over the dinner table as she discussed a dead girl.

Liz had been to the high school since then to talk about prevent schemes and drug campaigns at staff briefings, the usual stuff that she had become accustomed to over the years, and she saw the hallways where Jamie's tributes littered the lockers and walls. Suddenly the fact that they were enforcing road safety with an all new reverence made her feel guilty, like she was using this girl's death as an example when it was through no fault of her own. It was terrifying, an inside picture as to what a teenagers bereavement looked like and how the school seamlessly fell into mourning, the pictures of a not so long dead girl peering out as if to say 'don't forget me, I mattered'. Briefly, Liz wondered just how many times the teens at Mystic Falls High School had repeated those very same words in their head over and over, very much alive and well while Jamie's body was lost.

She hadn't just died, she'd somehow gone adrift and Liz couldn't shake it off no matter how hard she tried. She couldn't find the girl, Miranda's poor baby was lost, her body was all alone while her Parents lay at rest at the local cemetery- she didn't even get a proper burial, how could she when she was nowhere to be found?

Almost immediately she could see William Gilbert's face come to mind, the way he sipped at his flask every now and then absently whether there was an audience or not. She saw John grab him by the sleeve of his bright white shirt and take him aside for a word, the way he cut into his own grieving brother at a funeral. How Billy smiled a bittersweet smile and his words seemed to carry across the Church.

"The real Gilbert's, the ones that mattered, are over there in those caskets, John." He's spoken so sudden and abruptly that everyone seemed to turn their head even if they were trying not to look. "I have no one to impress, and I haven't been a part of this family in years."

She had spoken to him later on, remembering him vividly from when she was young and everything had seemed so simple. Billy had always been the best brother, she had thought back then, because he would always speak outright and didn't see himself as anything special. He had been generous and kind and had a startling sense of humour that seemed to knock people on their asses, and his relationship with his brother's hadn't always been strained.

She thought John was about ready to blow when he saw the dog at the graveyard, sitting promptly by Billy's feet as the ceremony continued. He had a face like thunder even as Jeremy and Jenna let out small smiles at the sight, or when Elena let out a small smile as the dog howled at Jamie's name. It was like the dog knew it's owner was dead, that Billy was sad, and it's growl as John came anywhere within five feet was enough to know that the dislike was mutual. That bit got a smile out of Billy, and Jenna too.

"It's been a long time, Lizzie." He'd said through tired eyes and a heart wrenching smile, but he looked handsome standing there all the same in the careless way he wore his suit and all his grief, one hand planted firmly in the dog's hair.

Liz was startled by the dog's gaze, with one eye a blinding white and the other as black as coal, though on closer inspection they were blue and brown respectively.

She had nodded, smiling sadly at the man who had somehow become lost with her youth. "I'm sorry it's under these circumstances, Billy."

"Me too." Billy nodded, his smile gone as the wind blew through the graveyard, and to her it seemed as if he were the ghost and not the one's being lowered into graves. "My girl, Jamie, she had a few run-ins with the law, a real chip off the ole block, hey?"

The dog whimpered slightly, hanging it's head, simpering a bit before resting his cold snout on it's paws. Billy watched these actions sadly, affection and grief shining through grey orbs as he nodded to his companion.

She had always been compared to William Gilbert, the brother who never came back to town, said in passing where Grayson couldn't hear them- because it was a sore spot, Billy's mere existence a black mark on the Founding Family name, known as the Black Sheep of the Gilbert clan. And Jamie was all too much like him.

The dark hair falling into her face in treacherous waves, wicked grey eyes that were too quick on the uptake, her smart mouth and her careless attitude- the unmistakeable pull that made her so likeable to some and so easy to give their admiration for in others. She was the walking talking Billy Gilbert in miniature as a child, and she didn't grow out of it at all in that short time she had been alive.

And all of a sudden Liz remembered the call.

The neighbours reported shouting and screaming and loud noises coming from the Gilbert residence, Officer Johnson and herself had been deployed for a routine check up just to make sure everything was okay. There had been a crackdown on domestic violence after a man in the backroads beat his wife to death, the most violent and obscene crime to happen in Mystic Falls, small town Virginia, other than the odd occurance of 'animal attacks' dotted throughout the years.

None other than Jamie Gilbert had answered the door, standing tall and proud at fourteen- or was it fifteen?- years of age, head held high and eyes staring back at her defiantly as the light shrouded her small figure. She had looked them straight in the eyes and without missing a beat had said- "What's the problem, Officers?"

Liz had noticed the bruises, of course she had, but Jamie was into contact-sports and wasn't one to shy away from a fight. And she'd known Grayson and Miranda, they were on the council and they seemed perfectly normal people, and they were good friends of hers. So she didn't think nothing of it. Not even when Jamie seemed to shrink in the too big doorframe as Grayson came forward and offered a kind smile.

"That Grayson fella, he's a real creep dontchathink?" Officer Johnson had said in the car later that night, "Something's off about him, I can't put my finger on it but there's just something not right 'bout the guy."

She'd brushed off his comment, and she didn't spare the bruises on little Jamie Gilbert's arm another thought.

(The truth was that those bruises were from Grayson, a part of Liz knew that, but she didn't know what went on that night. Words were exchanged, and the esteemed Dr. Gilbert had grabbed Jamie by the arm in a bruising grip and raised his fists. If Elena, poor sweet Elena who stood innocently at the stairs, hadn't interrupted him then the truth was that he would have hit his daughter. The one who was all too much like that bastard brother of his for her own good.)

All of this came back to her at once, and as the whole town stood as one to mourn the good Dr. Grayson Gilbert and his family she couldn't help but think the whole thing over.

 _Who was Grayson Gilbert really?_ She asked for the first time, staring into the six feet hole in which his body was going to be laid at rest forever. _Who was he and just what in the hell did he do?_

Those very same words crossed her mind as she sat in her office that September, and now it wasn't just some dead girl that kept her from opening the case file. She was scared, scared of what she'd find about someone she had called a friend, someone she would have never guessed had struck the fear of God into his little girl.

And Liz decided then and there that it was better for little Jamie Gilbert to stay lost.

* * *

 _Dear diary, today will be different._

The pen paused, lifting from the ruled paper, and Elena couldn't remember the last time she'd had the will to write. It had been her mom that had introduced her to diary entries, her dad that encouraged it after a long line of Gilbert's had kept theirs for future reference, and the way in which Jamie read each one that had shaped and honed Elena's apparent liking to it.

The pen met paper once more.

 _It has to be._

Of course it did, because summer was over and she didn't have anything left in her to mourn. The memory of her parents and sister left her feeling hollow, and not even the prescription she kept in the cabinet above the sink could relieve that pain.

" _High school is rough, Lainey, sure it is."_ Jamie spoke from the very same window seat she was sitting on right in that moment, " _But flash 'em a little smile, show a bit of skin, and tell them what they want to hear and you'll be fine."_

 _I will smile, and it will be believable. My smile will say-_ What would it say? She wondered briefly, feeling the disheartening flood of writer's block invading her chest and threatening to choke her of her only small relief.

What would Jamie have told her to say?

" _I'm fine, thank you."_

The pen stopped. Jamie tutted at her, shaking her head softly, " _I like the 'thank you', that's a real nice touch. But how are you feeling today, Miss. Gilbert? Good, I hope..."_

The pen moved. " _Yes, I feel much better."_

" _Thatta girl!"_ She jeered, her ruthless smile showing just the right amount of gapped tooth, " _I shoulda been a shrink, maybe in the next life though, hey?"_

Jamie had always seemed to know what to do and what she wanted to do, and that begged the question; What did Elena want to be?

 _I will no longer be the sad little girl who lost her parents, who lost her twin. I will start fresh, be someone new. It's the only way I will make it through._

" _Very poetic, Lainey. Very poetic indeed."_ Jamie punctuated with a slow, mocking clap, but Elena knew it was all in good fun. She watched her pseudo sister nod to herself, " _Am I sensing a William Shakespeare in our midst?"_

Elena shut the diary closed with a slam, finality filling the air and a new determination in her stride. She left her bedroom door open as she left the room, desperate to escape the evasiveness of her sister's memory. It was hard to ignore the door to Jamie's bedroom as she passed it in the hall, but like the words in her diary were a written law she was determined to start the new school year fresh.

(If she had stopped to look into her twin's room she would have found a pitiful Jeremy staring despondently at Jamie's handwriting as he flicked through old school notes that were left untouched. His deft hands searching idly through her vast record collection to find an album he had forgotten the name of by some band or another that Jamie liked to play especially in the mornings. But Elena wanted a fresh start, how was she to know that Jeremy would be left behind in the past?)

" _No? William Blake then, perhaps?"_ Jamie called after her, her tinkering laugh following Elena eerily as she practically raced down the stairs.

What is it that she used to do in the mornings again? Oh, that's right, her mom would have brewed a pot of coffee by now. (In reality it was most likely Jamie that had done all the work, as their mom increasingly got worse as the days went by, and she would have had something prepared for them to eat, too, because they lived a wholesome family life.)

"Toast!" Jenna blurted out, planted firmly by the refrigerator as she searched for something she could offer for breakfast, painfully unprepared and suitably flustered. "I can make toast."

" _And that, folks, is the beginning and the end of the impressively short list of thing's Miss. Jenna Sommers can successfully make without burning the house down!"_ Was what Jamie would have said, but Elena wasn't Jamie and she refused to remember what the first day of school used to look like.

"It's all about the coffee, aunt Jenna." She quipped absently.

"Is there coffee?" Jeremy ventured in.

"It's your first day of school and I'm totally unprepared."

Elena operated much like how she did over the summer, on autopilot. She ignored Jenna's insecure rambling, the way Jeremy was wearing Jamie's oversized hoodie, and just how dysfunctional her life had gotten seemingly overnight. And how it was painfully obvious that she still wasn't used to it at all yet, no matter how much time had passed.

Jeremy took the cup of coffee from her hands in one fluid and expectant motion, so seamless and reminiscent of how they used to be that she somehow hadn't expected it at all. She was jolted from her thoughts by the flicking of bills in front of her face, a determined Jenna standing in front of her with frantic eyes.

She could practically hear her sister making an offhanded comment about strippers, and didn't hear Jenna's frantic tone. "Lunch money?"

"I'm good." She breathed out, helping herself to another coffee that should already be in her hand as she willed her memories influence away.

She hardly noticed Jeremy's eager hands snatching the bills and stowing them away. The questionable thoughts about what he would possibly spend it on was the furthest thing from her mind in that moment. (Buddy Delaney, a local drug dealer and addict that used to be friends with Jamie and was now hanging around with Jeremy was the most obvious answer, the one that blared through her head over the summer whenever Jeremy came home wasted or high.)

"Anything else? A number two pencil? What am I missing?"

"Don't you have a big presentation today?"

"Ugh, I'm meeting with my thesis advisor at… now. Crap." Jenna let out, fixing her hair as Elena took control.

She'd been doing a lot of that lately, in hopes of tricking herself into believing she had her own life under control by reassuring everyone else. Maybe one day it would work. "Then go. We'll be fine."

As Jenna left in a hurry she spun to face her brother, ready to take care of him now that she was so certain she had her own emotional baggage under wraps. "You okay?"

"Don't start."

She remembered the way Jamie and Jeremy used to spend hours at a time in each other's rooms, the way they both leaned in close and talked quietly about something Elena would never get to join in with. The shouting over games, rarely at each other but always at other players or characters, the sketchbooks strewn over the beds as they drew each other and funny little cartoons, the music they both sung along to no matter how early or late it was, the knowing little smiles they shared over the dinner table and the code words and nicknames they threw about affectionately. It was a bond she herself was never let in on, though she had her own with Jamie.

How her sister was the only one that got to call her Lainey, that time she taught her how to kick one hell of a ball, the first time Elena got drunk and how she helped her to bed and tucked her in and cleaned up the broken glass from the vase she'd broken- the next morning when she took the blame without so much as a tell that she was lying, even though Elena knew for a fact she had stumbled into it the night before. That time when they were fourteen and Jamie punched Mike Brovick in the face for saying something dirty about Elena, or at parties where she let Elena have as much fun as she wanted and was always ready to help her home at the end of the night, the countless essays she let Elena copy or the notes she'd borrow- her and Jamie worked together seamlessly, and it had all felt so normal and natural that she supposed she'd never given it a second thought before.

She missed her, she missed it all.

"So Grams is telling me I'm psychic."

When she looked at Bonnie in the car she briefly thought about voicing those thoughts, to get everything off her chest, but this was a new start and she didn't want to talk about it anymore than she had to.

"Our ancestors were from Salem, which isn't all that, I know, _crazy-_ but she's going on and _on_ about it, and I'm like, put this woman in a home already!" Bonnie laughed, "But then, I started thinking, I predicted Obama and I predicted Heath Ledger-"

Elena winced at that, because Jamie had loved Heath Ledger. Moreover, she remembered when her friend had predicted the death.

" _Oh, please! This is going to be even better than Batman Begins, I can feel it in my bones. And hey, I love Jack Nicholson, the guy's a God among mere men, but this Joker is going to be off the rails, a whole new breed, I really think you should give it a chance!" Jamie insisted, smiling brilliantly, her words enthused by her love of cinema._

 _Matt groaned, Jamie and him had been having this argument for weeks now, and he'd been helping her with her impression of the Joker practically everyday, but Bonnie looked rather amused by it all._

" _Yeah, Matt." Elena teased, "Jamie's been practicing her new Joker impression already!"_

" _I've got that impression_ _ **down**_ _, thank you very much, I perfected it last week." Clearing her throat, she began "A year ago, these, uh, cops and lawyers wouldn't dare cross any of you, I mean, what happened?"_

 _Matt then piped in, with a comically deep voice and poor imitation, "So what are you proposing?"_

" _It's simple." Here she prodded at the inside of her mouth as if getting a feel for the scars she didn't have, a gleeful expression taking over when she realised everyone was humouring her impromptu performance. "We kill the batman."_

 _Elena had always thought that Jamie would make a really good actress, she certainly had the look and the talent for it, and she remembered several times off the top of her head where Jamie had lied seamlessly without so much as giving a tell sign. She was simply too good at pretending and lying to not be good at acting. But nevertheless this performance shocked her a little all the same, because it really did sound like the new Joker and Jamie was terribly good at it._

 _And then she laughed, a downright eerie and strangely perfect mock of this new Joker's laugh, one that racked her bones and took away her breath, before stating in a comical monotone that was just the right mix of husky and nasally, "Here's my card."_

" _That was actually… Wow." Matt fumbled, as if he hadn't been the one she had been practising with every day of the week since the trailers came out._

" _Who is the new Joker anyway?" Bonnie commented off handedly, her interest piqued at Jamie's enthused show._

 _Grinning toothily at her, an indulgent kind of wicked grin, Jamie courtsied for her audience as Matt clapped loudly. "Why, other than myself you mean? That would be Heath Ledger, the man the myth the legend in the making himself!"_

 _A strange look crossed Bonnie's features, and she spoke the next words carefully. "Heath Ledger's dead though…"_

" _What kind of crack have you been smoking, the movie hasn't even come out yet." Jamie snorted. "Take my word for it, Heath Ledger is very much alive, and I reckon he's well on his way to becoming a household name with this movie's release date."_

" _But… I could have sworn… Nevermind."_

 _And a week later, before the premier of The Dark Knight Rises, Heath Ledger died. Jamie had been devastated, and she never did her Joker impression again._

"And I still think Florida will break off and turn into little resort Islands."

Elena didn't hear her, instead she was thinking about Heath Ledger and Jamie's brilliant impressions. Her sister had been a master of many trades, from academics to the arts, and she somehow managed to be good at everything she tried her hand at. Instead of the envy she used to feel now she just felt empty to it all, because she'd give anything to hear her sister do that damned laugh again or recite the Joker's lines word for word-

"Elena!" Bonnie's voice broke through suddenly, "Back in the car."

"I did it again, didn't I? I, I'm sorry, Bonnie. You were telling me that…"

"That I'm psychic now."

"Right. Okay, then predict something." Elena prompted, flashes of Jamie and Heath Ledger entering her head once more, and she added on hastily. "About me."

"I see…"

And then Elena's heart stopped.

Tires squealing, the car veering off the side of the road.

" _Jamie! Jamie, wake up!"_

Her Mother's pale face in the pale blue light, her Father's desperate maneuvers to get out of the car, Jamie sitting right next to her, so close that they could touch if only she mo-

"What was that?! Oh my god!"

And then Elena was back in the car, and her family was dead once more.

"Elena, are you okay?"

"It's okay. I'm fine."

"It was like a bird or something, it came out of nowhere."

"Really, I can't be freaked out by cars for the rest of my life."

* * *

Tyler could see her face lit up in pale grief in the artificial light of the school hallways, if he wasn't paying attention he'd glance to his left where she had always stood or he'd go to say something only she would get and he knew she'd be the only one to laugh.

He was hanging out with Matt, Elena's sloppy seconds, and he supposed he was an alright guy. Except Tyler had never been an alright guy himself and he wasn't used to having to pretend, because Jamie would have seen through it in a heartbeat and he'd never had to try to maintain a friendship before. With her it came naturally, because she accepted him for what he was, rough around the edges as he may be.

The guys on the football team were alright, and he supposed he liked them well enough, but they were living in the shadow of his dead best friend and he didn't really care much as to what they thought about anything. Nothing that mattered anyway. So over the summer he'd practised bottling it all up, the fear he felt at the dinner table and the trepidation as he glanced his father's way, the grief and the pain and the inexplicable anger that could spike at any given moment- None of it would come to show on his face or in the way he moved, because Tyler Lockwood could like every bit as good as Jamie had been able to. He'd spent his whole life doing it, after all, and as some cheerleader he didn't care to know the name of eyed him shyly he almost felt good.

He'd been doing a lot of that lately too- not caring. Somehow his father's infidelity and volatile nature didn't seem to bother him so much, and his boozy mother's tears couldn't hold a lick of validation compared to the anguish he felt over the dead girl from his childhood. And so he began to live his life in a state of blissful ignorance, the kind that the very same dead girl had been so infatuated with the idea of.

Jamie talked a lot about the virtue of ignorance, about how not knowing was somehow better no matter how hard do-gooders like her twin had tried to argue against it. There was something beautiful about the unknown, the innocence that came with it and the security of knowing that nothing unexplainable would happen had seemed so bright and brilliant back then.

Because Tyler and Jamie had spent a lot of time questioning the things their parents did, and there was no plausible answer to it all. They had learnt that the hard way.

He'd seen Johnny Marx knocking around a few times over the summer, usually hanging out with that kid from the joint Jamie used to work at- Vinny's kid, Angelo or Angel or something like that- mostly at sinkhole bars he had no right being in and with people his parents would look down their noses at, but it didn't hurt to see the guy as much as he thought it would. Maybe because he took comfort in the fact that he wasn't the only one hurting, that there was a lot of people that felt torn up about her now that she was gone. It made his own state of depression and pent up aggression seem less pathetic.

Tyler wasn't Johnny's biggest fan, but he was definitely better than Jude- just the mere memory of that guy made him angry. The guy didn't speak in prose, he didn't speak much at all, and when he did he spoke plainly. He was the kinda guy that never raised his voice, mostly because there was no need, something about him made it so that you could hear him no matter how loud your surroundings were, and he made it so that he could be just as threatening without so much as a change of pitch. There was an honesty about him, but there was something else there too. Johnny wasn't a peaceful guy, he'd seen his fair share of brawls, that much was apparent. At least, it was to Tyler. He spent so much time around his own dad that he could simply tell just by looking at Johnny that he was no stranger to violence. On the giving end or the receiving.

Johnny was the type of guy that was quick on the uptake, be it a biting remark or his fists.

But Jude? Christ, what was Jamie doing with a loser like him in the first place?

He remembered how when _Hey Jude_ came on Jamie's smile grew, and how she swayed softly to the music despite harbouring a mild distaste for The Beatles with a cigarette jutting from between her lips in his dad's study where they drank whiskey from the tumbler and wine by the bottle. The neat lines of cocaine they'd rack up all tidy only to get sloppier and more crooked as the night went on shining bright against the hardwood finish. He'd never really taken to it personally, but his dad sure seemed to like the stuff judging by the sheer quantity of it in the bottom right hand drawer of his desk. And if they were stealing it from his old man, well then Tyler was more than happy to oblige.

And when that song came on Tyler would shake his head, because he hated the song almost as much as he hated the kid with its namesake. Jude had been an idiot, an absolute fool, and for some reason Jamie had found it endearing. Anyone could recite stolen poetry and come up with a few rhymes, take a claim for peace without suffering any violence in their lifetime. Tyler knew a thing or two about not fighting back, knew exactly where that would end him in the long run, and he hated Jude because he didn't know shit.

His dad was a hero, he fought for the country, and this kid had the nerve to put him down for fighting for it. He bet Jude's dad never hit him, never screamed and shouted and broke up the house, never hurt his mom. This kid didn't know how good he had it, didn't know how much Tyler wanted what he had.

He bet Jude never stole his dad's stash of cocaine and drank expensive whiskey that tastes like ass initially only to carry on drinking it anyway because the bruise on his face was practically _spitting_ from the memory of it. How over time that very same whiskey didn't seem to taste so bad no more and before he knew it the bottle was gone. How he had to sit out on the first four games of the season because his old man sure did a number on his ribs the next day. And how Tyler felt like crying as Jamie helped bandage him up properly, all because his mom's hands were too clumsy and daft from the shakes she got on occasion because she spent more money on wine than she did on food. How he watched the weight dwindle from her body with each passing day, and yet his dad still preferred fucking some cheap hooker with fake hair and patchy tan that dropped out of high school only a few years ago and lived down the street. It was so convenient that when Tyler witnessed it first hand he felt the sudden and sickening urge to laugh. No, Jude wouldn't have understood any of that, but Jamie sure did.

She had seemed to find it amusing, those talks of peace and loving everyone. She didn't buy into it, of course, and she was quick to take the piss once Jude's back was turned, but she had a soft spot for the guy all the same. When it came down to it Jamie didn't know peace, she was just like Tyler in that aspect, but she didn't hate the notion either.

He wondered if she found peace in death, and he hoped beyond hope that she did. Because no one knew pain like Jamie, and no one deserved that peace she had been so in love with more.

So he looked at Matt, really looked at the guy and thought hard about it, because Matt knew pain too and he was still an alright guy.

It was then that he supposed he would be just fine, that even though a crucial piece to the puzzle was missing he was willing to stick by Matt. Because, funnily enough, Tyler had some twisted sense of morals, and the one thing he valued highly was loyalty.

That's why, later that day, when he saw Elena and the new kid making gooey eyes at one another as he racked up the pool table, he decided right there and then that he was going to make Stefan Salvatore's school life hell. Because just look at Matt's face.

* * *

Jamie hadn't stepped foot into her own home since those initial few days where she'd ended up here, in the prison world, and no longer was this house a home. She had a new one, where she made memories with every passing day and her chest got lighter and her smile grew wider- and she was swimming at her own leisure, floating as the current washed over her in gentle beats and gazing into Kai's excited eyes. He was now her home as far as she was concerned. She didn't dream of drowning, she wasn't scared of her Father, the dead haunted her no longer and she was free once more. Free indeed, like she had only ever been as a child.

So she stepped foot back into the door, slamming the screen door carelessly where it rattled the frame. She had broken that very same screen door when she was four, she'd punched a hole in the netting and gave it a hard kick and it fell from the hinges with a creak. Elena had told their parents. This was back in the days where her dad liked her enough to smile, when her mom had only just begun to wish she was more like Elena, and the memory was almost fond.

She heard steps creek up the porch steps, and felt Kai as he entered the room.

"So _oo_ … Which room's yours, gorgeous?"

Jamie learnt early on that Kai could make her laugh. She'd throw her head back with her lips parted and laughter making her shoulders shake and her stomach heave. They'd fall into each other, sharing little touches in their joint mirth as they cracked up over something, they'd push and pull and tug at each other desperately. They were in-your-face-obnoxious, overly theatrical and pitifully dramatic, it was a showmanship of camaraderie in which they purposefully tried to outdo one another. They gave long rambling speeches atop tables and bars, threw their arms out and made fancy declarations and comical confessions while spinning and making obscene gestures, read aloud the most pretentious literacy they could find and made stupid poems that were overly infatuated. They had made the world their stage, and they were always trying to steal the show.

Kai's signs of loneliness dissipated over time, surprisingly quick considering the fifteen years of solitude. He learned that he liked having an audience, someone to cheer and jeer him on, to clap for him and call out his name, to have someone to smile and laugh with.

She appreciated his nonexistent moral compass and childlike behaviour, the prodding and pushing that only a sibling could induce and endure. As far as they were concerned they were the black sheep, and she had always had a tendency to befriend those types.

"I'll show you." She told him, "But don't get too jazzed or nothing, I was two in '98."

" _Ugh_ , don't remind me." Kai groaned dramatically, his eyes rolling to the back of his head and a teasing smile settled at his lips, "Jo must be _ancient_ by now, at least _I've_ aged with grace."

Snorting, Jamie elbowed him out of the way to race up the stairs, "You're lucky you don't age, Grandpa, try keep up will ya!"

"You're such a child!"

"Dude, don't talk to me it's weird, you're like thirty seven- _gross_."

"You're only as young as you _feeeeel_ , Jamiebell." He cackled, and next thing you know Jamie was sent stumbling as he rushed by. "And I'm feeling fresh!"

"Is being annoying in your genetics or were you dropped on your head as a child?" She quipped, making a beeline for her own room.

"What- no Peter Pan theme?"

"Fuck off, Malachai, you Bible bashing fool."

He whistled lowly, pointing her way, "Alright, Tink, put your wings away."

"Suck my fairy dust."

"I do enjoy these little chats, I really do." He deadpanned, looking through the toy chest with interest. "They made you use an abacus? That's borderline child abuse!"

Jamie rolled her eyes, huffing, "It hurt more than when they beat me."

"What else have you got around here? Not that I don't love the racecar bed, because I do, but I want the juicy stuff."

"The record collection is to the left, by the shelf." She drawled, "My first was actually The Wall by Pink Floyd, and then I hounded my dad into getting me London Calling by the Clash and Nevermind."

"An up and coming Nirvana fan, I like it." He grinned, shooting her a cheeky wink. He flopped down on her bed, sighing heavily with the record on his chest, "I'm basically your Peter Pan. This is Neverland. Hey, can I get another hit of the good stuff?"

"Then this is the most depressing fairytale I've ever seen."

"Wanna take a ride on the race car?"

"That's my childhood bed, man."

"Fast and wild, I like your style."

* * *

 _ **(AN: You guys must be bloody sick of listening to all the bloody depressing shit I spew out onto the page (despite the potential comic relief at the end ayyy), but I feel as if no one gives Tyler enough credit or recognition for the shit he went through and just skirt over the numerous deaths of crucial characters! Like, for real, losing a best friend or a role model would seriously fuck you up, take my word for it. Also, a lot of that loss symbolises the growth of these characters and what shaped them into what we saw in the series. Jeremy's drug problems, Jenna's insecurities, Elena's watered down personality, Caroline's word vomit around her, Bonnie's protectiveness and pushiness, etc. is all down to Grayson and Miranda's deaths; IMAGINE JAMIE'S IMPACT. The whole school freaked when Tanner died, and he was an asshole, the entire town shared condolences for Mayor Lockwood despite his bullshit, so please just imagine what would happen in Mystic Falls when a smart girl from a well-known family with historical standing dies along with her parents in a tragic accident.**_

 _ **Zach was a total recluse from what we saw, maybe Jamie's small part in his life impacted that in some way.**_

 _ **Enzo had literally been abandoned by EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. In his life so far! He actually liked Jamie and she was his only contact to the outside world in decades. They shared a goddamn bond, okay?!**_

 _ **Elena lost her twin, her other half, the one she spent her entire life with- like, holy shit. Every memory is significant to Jamie in some way, because they spent their entire lives together, and believe you me she won't escape comparison or off handed comments now that Jamie's gone.**_

 _ **Jeremy lost a sister and a role model and perhaps the only person who really understood him and shared his interests.**_

 _ **Tyler lost his best damn friend, the only one who understood him and gave a damn about him, maybe even the only person who could put up with his bollocks.**_

 _ **Jenna lost a niece, one she undoubtedly had a bond with because let's face it Jenna is awesome.**_

 _ **Billy lost his niece, the only real connection he had to his family in years, and the one he felt most at home with.**_

 _ **Roscoe lost an owner, this poor doggie is gonna miss her like hell.**_

 _ **Johnny lost his (ex)girlfriend, and he's going through some shit.**_

 _ **Buddy lost a customer, but he also lost a role model of sorts- because if anyone was going to succeed in life despite a little bit of a drug problem it was Jamie. And that jeremy kid isn't so bad.**_

 _ **IMAGINE OLD MAN RICHARDSON LOSING HIS LITTLE TYKE AFTER LOSING HIS WIFE, KIDS AREN'T SUPPOSED TO DIE BEFORE THE ELDERLY OKAY.**_

 _ **This was a long ass author's note but I just wanted to emphasise the impact of Jamie's death and just how horrible it is for everyone who had anything even remotely to do with her when she was alive. Thanks for all the reviews and stuff, you guys are bomb as hell.)**_


	12. Chapter Twelve, Four Seasons

**Sink Or Swim | Chapter Twelve, Four Seasons**

Send your dreams

Where nobody hides

Give your tears

To the tide

 _M83, Wait_

* * *

"Don't you want to time-travel? Oh, wait, you already sorta did. Very Michael J. Fox of you, by the way. Have you seen Back to the Future?"

"Sure I have," Jamie replied, "all three of 'em. Two sucked but I liked the third, but then again I've always been a sucker for the Wild West."

Kai nodded again, wholeheartedly agreeing and somewhat wistful. "We're like a better looking Mary McFlyy."

"Michael J. Fox quit acting, parkinson's disease I think… Wait, are you a better looking Marty or are we a better looking Marty collectively? Because I'm down with the Delorean, just so you know."

"Both. Hey, we should make a movie or something, I always did see myself as the James Dean of my generation. Did I ever tell you about that one Baywatch episode?"

"The one with the busty blonde or the smoking hot brunette in red?"

"No, no, no- This one was with the black haired girl, kinda curly, with the bedroom eyes. Aw man, you shoulda seen it-"

Jamie and Kai were laid out on the porch, staring into the festering Virginia sun and not really doing much of anything. She used to do that sort of thing a lot, more frequently after Rita bit the bullet, and it was times like those she would dream of running away.

She shifted, turning to face Kai in quiet contemplation. It was strange doing it again, and she supposed she didn't have to run away anymore, not when there was nothing to leave behind or look forward to- no real viable escape. There was no real comfort in those thoughts.

Laying down like that, with her back laid out flat against the rough and weather fared surface of the porch, really hurt. The bruises from the car crash were still there, they were still as painful and vibrant as the day she had woke up, but she slowly eased herself into that pain just like she had done with every other aspect of her new life. She had stopped wondering why they hadn't healed, and ignored every impulse in her being to purposefully bruise or cut her skin to see the limits and implications of healing in the prison world.

They talked some, or sat in silence for a while, but there were times where it was just Kai talking about anything that came to mind, and she noticed the distinctive patterns of topics and his mood and the relations between how his mind processed thoughts and how he conveyed them.

"Hey, do you know how to develop photos?"

"I probably could." Jamie mused lazily, facing the sun in a golden haze. "Why, where are we going?"

"I was thinking the Oval Office, maybe the big NYC- Hey, what about Friends? We could totally go visit the Central Perks, I've never been before. You'd make a really hot Monica, maybe even Jennifer Aniston."

"I'd like to go on a road trip." She agreed easily, thinking about how nice it would be to get away from the house and maybe never return.

Kai smiled happily to himself, "Great! You know, my little brother Joey loved Friends, he-"

She noticed how his smile dimmed a little bit, and how his eyes poorly veiled the sudden spike of something else entirely as his happy rambling gave way to an empty shell exterior. His voice never faltered, he just kept on talking, but there was some kind of change.

He talked about his family a lot. It was always a bastard hybrid of malice and amusement when it came down to his twin sister Jo, and Jamie could easily recite the tale of how she betrayed him along with the rest of his coven- she could do it backwards too at your insistence. He liked talking about Joey, they used to play games together and out of all of them he was probably Kai's favourite, most likely because he had a bit of a devious streak in him and was easily manipulated into being on his side for the most part. It was a strange mix of affection and control, and the empty look in his eyes as he described the murder over and over again was disconcerting to say the least.

She didn't fool herself into believing Kai had any regrets, she was pretty sure he wasn't capable of it, and he'd happily admit that he was by no means a good person. The others weren't brought up very often. But when he spoke about Liv and Luke, the second pair of twins meant to replace himself and Jo, there was nothing but anger, pain and betrayal.

It was like she was in one of those old school projectors and a dark room when he talked like that, where she could see each child's face in a crackled newsprint photograph, their smiling faces flashing briefly before the next scene came on. Jo's bloody stomach staining wooden floors as she crawled, her throwing her arms around the baby's and begging them not to cry. Joey staring up at his big brother, too confused to be scared in the beginning, trying to believe the whole thing was a joke, that it wasn't his siblings dead bodies hung over the stairwell. His little body thrashing as he was drowned- it was Joey she felt the most for, because she knew all about drowning.

When Kai talked about his family the words 'abomination' and 'freak of nature' came up often, and it was during moments like that she could see how his hands would clench and flex and how his eyes would snap up to meet her own.

He was crazy. Point blank, staring at the bullet at the end of a barrel crazy. And every time Jamie so much as looked as him she was staring at a loaded gun.

Sometimes it wasn't easy living with Kai. For the most part Jamie learned to live with it, embraced it even, but it still got lonely. It was at four am when he was asleep and she was staring up at the ceiling with a frown, when the conversation lapsed during mundane tasks and there was nothing left to say, when the loneliness eventually faded into a dull resignation- and sometimes it even felt good, but it never felt right. That was clear as day to Jamie as she watched the eclipse alone in the car, waiting for Kai to come out of the gas station some day in what she could only guess would have been in August. She wondered about her birthday for a while as she sat in that car, and while it wasn't her first birthday alone she supposed it was different.

But sometimes, especially in instances in which he discussed his siblings, he got lost in his own mind. She imagined him rambling a lot mentally, stringing sentences together sequence after sequence and struggling to put it all together. He had killed most of his siblings, and made attempts at the lives of the others as well, and she supposed he was a sociopath in every sense of the word. It didn't bother her too much in all honesty, and it should have. But it didn't, the same way Enzo's existence didn't and yet her father's actions did. She surmised that it was different, if not hypocritical of her, that her father's actions were a betrayal of sorts and that Kai and Enzo were honest about themselves. Which lead to the conclusion that it wasn't bad people or their actions that warranted her dislike, it was how they went about it.

Sometimes, at the dead of night when Kai thought she was sleeping, she could hear him talking to himself. It was a habit, no doubt, that he had picked up over a fifteenth of a century, and even her presence wasn't enough to douse it out like the small flames of the fire that licked and spit and hissed as it thought to carry on burning through the night. Kai's talking to himself was only a part of that fire, the other parts that made it up could all be put down to desperation. He saw Jamie's unease flickering through her eyes sometimes, in spare moments that came across as often as petty change, and he was all too aware of the fact that he could lose her. It didn't make sense, and it really didn't have to, and despite the fact that she had nowhere to go and no visible escape there mere thought of her being there meant he had something to lose; and he hadn't had anything to lose in a long time.

So when the silence suddenly loomed over them as they laid out on the porch, Jamie felt rightfully wary. Blue eyes, frightfully empty and frantic, penetrated grey. And that fire in Kai felt more like a ticking time bomb than ever, and it just to happened that time had run out.

Kai got in a mood, one that was decisively more dangerous concerning both their well beings. Jamie wouldn't call it walking on eggshells, because Kai's mood changes were as frequent as blinking in some instances, and a simple thing could snap him out of it- but this time the atmosphere was a lot darker, and the self inflicted topic choice had become a bit too graphic compared to the usual comments in passing.

His family had done lasting damage, that much was clear.

That's what was running through his head at the time, and Jamie had taken to staring at the sky for now, and he felt a surge of something rush through him. She couldn't go anywhere, she had nowhere to go, he told himself sternly, she wouldn't leave him. Betray him like Jo and his Parents. She wouldn't.

The human body has an innate fixture of behaviour which rules bodily reaction, and autopilot response rules a fight or flight instinct, or rather a flinch effect. Jamie, while lacking the proper training which fights against this immediate reaction fueled by the brain, had been in enough fights to know that you should always be on guard. And with Kai it was hard not to be on edge, especially when he was demonstrating destructive thoughts and behaviour.

And so her hand shot out and met the cool edge of the blade on instinct, and adrenaline fuelled her lack of response to the shallow cut that sliced through her palm.

It looked like she'd find out the inner workings of the healing process in the Prison World paradox sooner rather than later.

But it was that instant when Kai grabbed her wrist, and every nerve was standing on edge as he felt the oh so familiar rush of magick in the air as it came to life.

Her wrist was snatched away then, and he didn't make a move to stop her.

She didn't know where he had gotten the knife, and she couldn't remember ever standing up, but next minute her feet were beating against the concrete of the street as the eclipse came to and the blade caught the light. It had taken a long while, but Kai had finally snapped, and a part of her was expecting it all along.

In her mind she knew she should have reasoned with him, tried talking him out of it or offered some carefully thought out words before it came to this in the first place, but Jamie wasn't in the mood and you really had to be in the mood for those kinds of things to work. So she ran, and she didn't so much as bother to spare a glance back at her home.

He was going to kill her, and Jamie could only hope that he couldn't keep up as she maneuvered herself through the streets of her hometown. The one she knew like the back of her hand.

* * *

Jeremy Gilbert had not resorted to stealing to fund his drug habit, in a way he was above it but mostly it came down to the fact that money always seemed to come to hand at the right time and the right place. Like this morning when Jenna had bills to hand and Jeremy had been planning to smoke his lunch, dinner and breakfast- rinse and repeat. Life just seemed to have a funny way of working out sometimes, and he contemplated that a lot over an early morning hit. He figured that with all the hardship that came about that this was life's way of paying him back, or maybe it was just rubbing salt in the wound- because no amount of money or contraband would bring back his dead parents and sister. But after the first few pulls that fact seemed to dull a bit and his brain went a bit foggy with all the smoke and chemicals clogging everything up in there.

So his first stop that morning, with just enough time to get to school, was Buddy Holland's. He lived in a slightly rougher setting than Jeremy was used to, but he didn't really mind. The house was always dark and the blinds were always down, and if you didn't know about the weak floorboard on the second step you'd be looking at a trip to the ER and a tetanus shot, but he had become somewhat of a regular there over the summer. And Buddy had clued him in on the death traps that old and neglected properties came to have after a short while.

"Gilbert!" Buddy greeted, grinning widely, "Come on in, man. Come on in. Glad you could make it."

Jeremy saw Johnny Marx for the first time since the funeral on the morning of his first day at school, when he dropped around Buddy Delaney's for a quick pick up. He recognised Johnny from the arrogant smirk he'd flash from his car while dropping Jamie home, the waggle of his fingers and the mocking eyes. Little brother's didn't have to like their sister's boyfriends, he knew, but he didn't have much to say about Johnny. He wasn't nice like Matt, he wasn't on the varsity football team, he didn't seem to have a job, and the few times he had spotted him outside the company of Jamie he was drunk or high. Then again, Jamie went through her own period of always being on something, and Jeremy was currently going through his own faze.

Johnny didn't even lift his head from the beer bottle he was currently lost in, drinking from the stem generously. For a booze hound he was a pretty clean cut guy, his hair was carefully tousled and his face was freshly shaven, and he looked a darn sight better than Buddy in that moment.

"You coming to school today?" He asked, handing over the cash as Buddy passed him a joint to have a go at.

Buddy chortled, sloshing beer over his already liquor stained shirt, and he stank to high heaven of booze and weed. "Fuck that, my Dad's been houndin' me 'bout grades and… and… Well, everything else too, I s'pose."

Jeremy took a deep drag, holding the smoke for a while before exhaling and feeling the familiar cluster of thoughts dulling at the rush to his head. He'd never get used to that instinctive hit, the way everything just faded to ease and he could manage a smile once more.

"Buddy here, his old man's a cop. A real mean bastard, right, Buddy?" Johnny spoke up all of a sudden, all mocking and condescending like.

"Yeah, the worst." Buddy nodded along eagerly, always happy to talk about what a prick his dad was.

"And he's been fucking hounding me all over the summer. Him and that Delaney with the whore wife." Johnny swore, shaking his bottle at Buddy, and even while high he had the good sense to recognise a threatening action when he saw it, and the terrible mood that had taken its turn over Johnny.

Suddenly, polar blue eyes were on Jeremy, pinning him to the spot, and he thought then that he'd agree to anything the guy in front of him said.

"Your sister didn't like him much, you know that? Then again, she didn't like Buddy so much neither. He could be a real dick to her, you know?"

He nodded, "Yeah. Yeah, I guess. She didn't mind Buddy so much though, not really, because he sold good weed."

Johnny snorted at that, "Sure, _weed_." He muttered, shaking his head. "Buddy's got a one track mind when it comes to tail, and your sister had too much smarts to fall for the tricks he had been spinning."

(Jeremy didn't know about the copious amounts of coke and the little pills she liked to keep handy despite the rumours, and Johnny probably knew better than anyone.)

And just like that the conversation was over, because he knew well enough to not carry on speaking after Johnny Marx was finished.

"You- You know what." Buddy spoke up, "I think I'm… miss today."

"You sure?" Jeremy raised an eyebrow at him, "It's the first day of school, Principal Weber will have your ass for missing it."

Buddy was a senior, had been for two years now, though you wouldn't know it from his outstanding attendance record, meaning he was practically setting a worldwide record for unexplained absences. Who knew someone could be absent so often and still somehow be allowed to redo the school year? Well, like Jamie had come to know before her first year at high school had even began, Jeremy had found out that the Principal had just a little bit of a coke addiction that Buddy was only too able to fulfill. Unlike Jamie, however, he would not resort to blackmail and/or extortion in response, he only laughed a little when the Principal walked by and rubbed his nose a bit with a knowing smile. Something told him that the old bastard would probably prefer blackmail and extortion over the smart alec way he went about his mockery, but he wasn't his sister and he certainly wasn't going to come right out and say anything. Besides drug abuse and the occasional ditching class Jeremy was a clean cut kid. And he supposed that he intended to keep it that way.

"Not if he wants a little charlie he won't. Not many people are willing to do business with the old coot after he got caught beating his wife last time, some people just can't handle their powder, y'know?"

"Your sister really tore the old guy a new one, Gilbert." Johnny told him, "How else did that little blonde bombshell get all her school dances and charity events? Shit, even Mayor Lockwood looked her way when it came to getting the support for charity events and the like. If it weren't for her the school wouldn't have an art programme or a proper historical society. The stoner's in AV club owed her an outstanding debt by the time her first semester in that hell hole was up, and she managed to escape jail time by getting the local station brand new radio sets just last year. Jesus, did Jamie Gilbert know how to extort. It was a fucking gift, man."

That was the most Jeremy had ever heard Johnny Marx talk. He wasn't a guy who spoke much, but he sure did have a lot to say about Jamie.

"You know about the radio thing?"

Jeremy had only found out about Jamie's tech excursion and the crooked deals she was pulling after Uncle Billy had a little too much to drink, men who drank sometimes liked to talk and they told a lot of stories. Billy was talking about it over a glass of scotch, and he was basking in the brilliance of the idea and the scams he could pull off because of it- all because Jamie was too smart for her own good. And apparently she could keep one hell of a secret.

Which begged the question, what else had she been keeping from him?

Johnny snorted, "I helped her rewire and replace parts for the better half of a month, not to mention I called in an old favor to get us into that junkyard off route three where that bozo up and killed his wife. Got me off a pretty hefty charge myself, sure was genius."

"I've gotta get to school, I'm gonna be late." He murmured, heaving his backpack onto his shoulders.

And with some weed in his pocket and a suitable buzz Jeremy went to school, but not without questions weighing down heavily on his mind.

 _Jesus, Jamie,_ he swore mentally, _just what the hell did you do?_

* * *

"Major lack of male real estate. Look at the shower curtain on Kelly Beach, she looks a hot- can I still say 'tranny mess'?"

Elena let an amused smile slip, shaking her head, "No, that's over."

Bonnie grinned back at her, and the normalcy of the whole thing sent Elena through loops. "Ah, find a man, coin a phrase. It's a busy year."

She could feel people's stares, the whispers circulating around the school halls as she purposefully kept her eyes off of her sister's memorial. Those photo's and flowers and whatever else people had put up in their grief were supposed to be taken down over the summer, but as it turns out the stuff was easily replaced by the student body in their joint effort to remember Jamie. A part of her, however silly it made her feel, was surprised by just how much her sister's life had touched others and how her death affected people. The stoners, nerds, cheerleaders, jocks, and just about everyone else had stories to tell about Jamie.

(Jamie knew all the stoner's on a first name basis and was always willing to chill out in the pit. She was a high achieving student with an outstanding grade point average and was taking a large quantity of AP classes along with a refreshing readiness to answer anyone else's questions. Caroline for some reason felt indebted to her and had made sure the entire squad didn't piss her off, the jock's knew her from old little league games and the weekends she took part in contact sports, nevermind the after parties and her brilliant throwing arm. School trophies on display had her name down, she had set records for the track team along with several published papers that had college's jumping down her throat with scholarship offers. A group art project she had taken part of had singlehandedly funded two school dances and brand new resources for the programme. And those were only her legal and most renowned achievements. The truth was that Tinkerbell Jamie Gilbert was a living legend among the MFHS hallways.)

It was a weird realisation, and it shouldn't have taken Elena by surprise at all, but for some reason it made her feel terrible. She was about to make a comment about the rumours circulating, that the new Woodshop and Mechanics course down the community college for high school dropouts and kids who struggle with school being named after Jamie due to her petitioning and influence in making it happen- but before she could so much as articulate the thought she realised Bonnie was staring at something strangely.

Matt Donovan.

It was a strange sensation, one of self-pity, sympathy and plain embarrassment that flooded through her. She couldn't help it, because her best friend was now her ex boyfriend, and nothing could be more awkward. Especially with the circumstances of their breakup, that being it taking place the night her parents and subsequently her sister died. Just how did everything get so messed up all of a sudden? One minute she was happy and living the apple pie life, the next she was waking up in hospital to dead relatives and funeral planning.

All of this was terribly distinctive as she waved weakly at him from down the hall, the letterman jacket he used to drape over her shoulders in the cold wrapped around him like armor as he turned away.

"He hates me." She sighed morosely, leaning heavily against the lockers and feeling a little indignant. It was easy to perceive it all as unfair treatment when she wasn't the one being broken up with, and she knew that, but she needed Matt and he simply wasn't there. Highschool relationships wasn't exactly a priority for her nowadays.

"That's not hate." Bonnie pointed out idly, shoving and interchanging textbooks from her bag to her locker. "That's 'You dumped me but I'm too cool to show it but I'm secretly listening to Air Supply's Greatest Hits'."

The overwhelming need to make light of the situation, to join in with Bonnie's playful snark, came over her all at once, before she really knew what she was saying at all. "Actually, I'm pretty sure Jamie threw away Matt's Air Supply albums."

Bonnie glanced up at her in surprise, a tentative smile flitting at her lips, unsure but grateful. Jamie's not being there had left them all in dangerous territory, because she had been such a big part of their lives that it was difficult not to bring her up every now and then, but the fact that Elena was the one to bring up her name meant a lot.

"Elena. Oh my God."

Before she really had time to come to terms with what she just said she was attacked with every sense as the overwhelming blonde bombshell went in for the kill. Enveloped in a friendly, if not pushy, embrace, she didn't really remember what she had just said before the interruption anyway. Jamie was gone with the wind, just a passing phase, and Elena felt nothing.

"How are you? Ugh, it's _so_ good to see you." Caroline spoke in a rush, as she feebly returned the hug to the best of her ability, most of her limbs ensnared as she struggled to free them all the while breathing in perfume and hair product.

"How is she? Is she good?" Caroline turned abruptly, directing all questions Bonnie's way and ignoring Elena entirely.

Elena nearly rolled her eyes at that. "Caroline, I'm right here. And I'm fine." Should she tag a thank you on the end, she wondered, or just let her talk until she got bored? "Thank you."

"Really?"

She couldn't help it, she just had to be nice, and how many times had that resulted in her being dragged into some horrible event or an especially dull conversation while Jeremy and Jamie stood safely on the sidelines snickering to themselves? Jamie in particular had a talent of escaping the clutches of middle aged women and stuck up pricks in high society, and as a result Jeremy got a free ride, all he had to do was follow her lead. Even now, Elena half expected to see Jamie grinning down the hall, because somehow she always knew when her twin was being too nice for her own good.

"Yes. Much better." Elena gave her a strained smile, which looked too rehearsed to be real, not because she was lying but because she really didn't want to talk to her right now.

"Oh, you poor thing." Caroline cooed sympathetically, pulling her in for another hug.

Elena looked up at the ceiling, and she was pretty sure her hug quota had been filled for the day. "Ok, Caroline."

She let out a deep breath, smiling brightly like only Caroline Forbes could, "Ok, see you guys later? Ok, bye."

Elena watched her go, unable to fathom the bubbly personality and sheer plastic of the bouncy blonde. Turning back to Bonnie, shaking her head, she spoke pointedly, "No comment. I'm not going to say anything."

* * *

She remembered a school project she had done one fall afternoon, as the leaves rained down and she exchanged winter jackets and gloves for one of Billy's too-big jackets and dirty sneakers. She'd been sitting on the roof of one of the abandoned farm houses on the outer roads of town, her school bag sprawled out next to her and the leaves got caught in her hair and her hands bled from splinters and loose nails. She liked climbing, and she liked the solitude of the broken down farmhouses. It was quiet, and sometimes it felt like it was the only place on earth where the noise hadn't caught up to yet.

In the here and now, or rather back in 1994, Jamie missed the seasons. She missed the breaching of cold in the spring and watching the snow thaw out gradually, the lazy summer nights as the temperature lulled and she was suspended in nothingness, the transience of fall as nature shedded it's colours and began anew, the dusting of breath evident against the cold air in the winter as her hair whipped about her face and her cheeks flushed against the chill. There were no seasons here, just air, not temperature. It was a stupid thing to miss, but she did all the same.

She imagined the rain, briefly, though she never thought she'd miss water. Not after wallowing in it for so long that she had lost her breath, and somehow ended up here.

Her one word prompt was love. She remembered it suddenly as the same breeze that blew everyday came about, the one that ended too soon, predictable just like everything else in this place other than Kai.

If her teacher had noticed the gentle curling of her lips as she sneered down at the assignment page she hadn't said so, and maybe that was because Jamie was just another teenager or maybe it was due to the recent divorce she had suffered through and she was disgusted with the word itself.

Jamie didn't know what to write, because she was lost and she didn't know what love was. Her teacher had thought she knew what it meant, but now as she cried into the papers she was grading and the empty bedsheets of her one room apartment she wasn't so sure.

She supposed, absently as she looked out at the vague horizon of a town she had hated growing up, that she loved many things. Movies, books, knowledge, family, friends, cars- all that good stuff. But she could live without it, even familial bonds and the notion of friendship was fleeting, and she knew you didn't necessarily need it. It occurred to her to lie, to talk about some cliché romance or write a description of some vague features that were universally attractive.

There was a second where she pictured Johnny, sure, because even if she couldn't admit to herself that she loved him he had done enough penance for the both of them.

But for the first time in a long time, maybe her whole life, Jamie felt the need to be honest. So she wrote the truth.

Currently, while Jamie was remembering it for the first time, Elena was standing in the very same hall where that prompt was hung up, scanning over the words mindlessly.

Jamie remembered the day they received their grades, how Mrs. Dunbree- now Miss. Writtle please- had set herself upon her desk at the front of the room heavily. She spoke that day about one of the papers, anonymous of course, and how moving it was. Jamie remembered how she cried, how her pretty cheeks were flushed as she faced the class with tears.

Love is a common ideal misconception, and in her modest opinion it didn't mean much of anything. She didn't remember reading what love was about in all those poems and books she had read, the notion was always there but she didn't see any mentions of honest heartache and disgustingly heaving sobs that made you want to bring up the dinner you'd eaten only an hour or two ago. There was nothing about covering your ears as your parents screamed obscenities and horrible truths and when the only relief came with the slamming of doors and the rev of the engine. She didn't see anything about the insecurities and vulnerabilities relationships produce- the mere embodiment of romance in its purest form.

It was all about selflessness and mutual attraction. And Jamie knew it all to be a lie.

She knew better than anyone that love was selfish. It was Johnny tugging at her hand in public to make sure everyone knew she was his. It was cruel, the horrible statistic of domestic violence and the bruises littering the victim's arms that they were too afraid to speak about out loud- because like love the truth was ugly. Love, which somewhere along the way, after repeating it over and over in her mind aimlessly for hours on end, had become a noun, was a sham. It was the divorce rates going higher and the bootleg weddings with a baby appearing seven months later. Love was the biggest lie that Jamie had ever heard, and yet they still tried to feed it to her anyway.

She thought about going back, to simply let Kai kill her.

Remembering that assignment had taken it out of her, and she wasn't quite sure what she had left in her to feel anymore, what she had left to remember. There had been a point in her life where she had been adamant that memories were all she had left, because the people she had held dear seemed to be dropping like flies and her home life seemed to break from under her a piece at a time, but in a world where time no longer moved the same she had learnt that memories weren't worth the brain tissue they took up without a forward motion prevailing.

She began to sing softly, whistling a vague tune that resembled The Verve's _The Drugs Don't Work._

"Now the drugs don't work, they just make you worse but I know that I'll see your face again…" She mumbled to herself, thinking about the times she came out here to have a sly spliff or when she took some kind of pill and simply lay down on this very same roof, fucked out of her head on legal pharmaceuticals and her Mom's prescriptions, mixing them up into her very lethal concoction and flirting with death the way only young people that had no business doing so could. One thing that could be said about Jamie was that she had balls, and she'd do anything at least once.

Her and Tyler would hike when they were younger, and she remembered when they found the train tracks on the bridge and would lay under them in the dark. The train would come and the world felt like it was shaking, they'd embed their grimy fingers into the dirt and the grass and they'd hold on for dear life as they screamed and yelled and let out manic peels of laughter. It had been a good time, and she supposed she ended up searching for those good times when she got a little older; because that's all she had really had to live for.

Suddenly Jamie remembered Church, and how they spoke their pretty little lies about the afterlife; the holy realm and heaven bound souls. It was sadly funny, the dedication people put into the holy book on the off chance that hell happened to exist. Pastor Young was a prime example, all that preaching and prancing around the Church must get tiring.

"Save our souls, huh?" She muttered, scuffing her sneaker against the rickety scaffolding of a half-finished skeleton of a building, suspended on nothing but cheap plywood and faith.

Was this the so called promised land?

Her bleeding hand held a fistfull of rough denim, the knees had been torn a bit during the climb and she had scuffed one anyway in her haste to get away from the resident psycho. It was a lot of blood, and she vividly recalled the paraphilia surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus, the way it got a lot of bible bashing folk all hot and bothered to talk about their Lord and saviour and the suffering he had to do for their sins. She figured poor ole Jesus and herself had gotten the short end of the stick there.

" _Your promised land sucks!"_ She bellowed at the top of her lungs, tearful and angry and utterly defeated. Sagging, folding into herself once more, she murmured half heartedly to herself. "Crucify me, for chrissake. God's not even watching."

* * *

Kai could still feel it, the raw energy that seemed to flow off her like waves, the key being skin to skin contact.

Since when did Jamie have magic?

* * *

 _ **(AN: I'M NOT SHITTING ON RELIGION BTW. Jamie's just… frustrated. And can you blame her? Full disclaimer, I was born and raised a Catholic and I mean no disrespect.**_

 _ **So, there was a review that made me laugh a bit, because it practically foretold the events in this chapter. A little something about what would happen when Kai and Jamie got bored… Am I really that predictable?**_

 _ **Anyway, here's what we learned today kiddos. Jamie can't die, but can sustain injury. She's also every siphon's wet dream (lol sorry for the cliffhanger) and her and Kai are in a toxic friendship. Also, I like writing sad stuff. Maybe I'm projecting, who knows? Talk about depressing.**_

 _ **We're not even finished with the bloody pilot episode, are you kidding me? But in all seriousness, I'm kind of dragging it out for a reason, and I am going to be fast forwarding a lot of the first season due to… later events that actually involve Jamie. Also I was really ill for a few days, which is the actual reason I didn't finish writing the pilot episode, but I managed to edit all the Kai/Jamie stuff and that's what really matters (That's all we really want, isn't it? The dysfunctional adventures of a dead girl and her sociopath bff). And btw if you want to ship Kai and Jamie the official ship name is KINKERBELL (sorry Kol).**_

 _ **ALSO DON'T FORGET MYSTERIOUS GUY WHO IS CURRENTLY IN POSSESSION OF JAMIE'S BODY. Nathan is kinda important in case you didn't notice. Cheers.**_

 _ **I'm grateful to everyone that reviews, follows and favourites this fic, thank you all so much. It's weird to think that this fic broke 300 follows tbh, but I'm really grateful! Also if any of you want to talk or be friends or whatever feel free to message me or dm me on ig eyeball_chambers because I find all of your reviews and ideas so interesting! See you next chapter.**_

 _ **ALSO- I MADE A TRAILER FOR THIS FIC. Do people still do that? The link is in my profile, so go check that out please… That's also what inspired the song thing at the beginning of this chapter. I'd just like to point out that Jamie's short hair grew out in the Prison World, so that's why it's long in the trailer- really I just couldn't find anyone to be in it with short hair like Jamie's oops.)**_


	13. interlude

**Sink Or Swim |** **Chapter Thirteen**

 **INTERLUDE**

Well, the sun sinks slowly

and my old hound just sat right down and cried

 _Seamus, Pink Floyd_

 ** _(AN: I'm sorry to say that this is not a chapter but a memorial of sorts. My dog died the other day, he was my best friend and the best companion I could have ever asked for. A good boy. This is a nod to him, I suppose, because I wrote it with him in mind a while ago- it was suppose to be featured in the next chapter in fact. I'll feature the notes I have on it at the end, which sadly mentions my canine pal while he was still fit as a fiddle. R.I.P Kyro, you were a good boy and the best friend I ever had.)_**

* * *

Roscoe was a good boy, a good dog, and he was never lonely. THE MAN and THE GIRL looked after him, and he looked after them. That's why he was at the cemetery, he knew the way, and he wanted to see THE GIRL.

Someone, one of THE HUMANS, had left a picture of her next to a piece of rock. Roscoe didn't know why, but he remembered her voice. So he'd curl up under the lazy summer heat that was fast fading, and he'd rest his nose against his big paws on the upturned soil in front of the rock, let his eyes rest but alert at every noise. No one could touch THE GIRL, he knew she was there and he'd protect her, because he was a GOOD BOY, he was her COE, and no one could hurt her. Not while he was on watch.

THE MAN would come soon, he'd pet him before taking a long drink from his bottle, and he'd talk to him some before tugging at his collar. That meant they had to leave, sometimes before it got dark and sometimes long after, some days the bottle would be empty by then and other times only half, but he'd get through that bottle eventually. THE MAN spoke about THE GIRL, Roscoe liked listening to his voice, it made him remember what THE GIRL sounded like.

When they went to one of the houses in town he'd catch whiffs of her scent, and he'd follow his nose up the stairs and sit patiently in front of the closed door where the smell leaked from the crack between panel and floorboard. The door never opened, but he waited for THE GIRL nonetheless. It wasn't very fun, and sometimes his paws itched to run and his tail wanted to wag, but it would all be worth it when THE GIRL would come out, because she would put on her sneakers and grab his leash, her hands would be embedded in his fur and she'd thump his stomach fondly before petting his head, all the while talking to him, taking him for long winding walks through forestation and greenery where there were interesting rocks and plenty of noises.

THE BOY would pet him as he walked past, sometimes he'd sit next to him with his head hanging low and glassy eyed. Roscoe could feel the glumness fester and manifest, and he'd rub his body against THE BOY's arm until he cheered up. He smelled weird, like sour smoke and tobacco with something strange in the mix. Roscoe didn't know the smell was weed, he just knew THE BOY that sat with him sometimes smelled of it often. He didn't much mind it, because he wasn't so lonely when he came by.

THE WOMAN would stop in the hallway and stare for a while, and she'd get teary and laugh weakly. She was the one that would tell him to go downstairs, where THE MAN waited for him. He liked THE WOMAN, she gave good belly rubs and too many treats.

But that didn't stop him from missing THE GIRL.

He'd see her sometimes in his dreams, grinning down at him with light eyes creased gently in adoration.

"Coe, you're a good boy, d'ya know that?" She'd tell him warmly, bending down so that she could scratch him in just the right spot. "You're a good dog, a real pal."

He could hear her say it as he waited, and waited and waited- he never really stopped waiting. But Roscoe was a good boy, a good dog, and he'd wait forever if only it meant he could see THE GIRL again. He was a good boy, she had told him so herself, and she'd tell him once more when the time came and they would meet once again- He just knew it.

* * *

 _ **(OLD AN: Sooo, any animal lovers out there? I've got a dog, a little Jack Russell called Kyro, and I'm dreading going to Uni because I know he'll miss me a hell of a lot. Roscoe's POV was something I wanted to explore, because our little tri-coloured friend should not be forgotten. Was it upsetting? Should I play with it a little more in the future? I've already got a good idea of what I want to do with it, that's why I'm introducing it to the story.**_

 _ **I passed my A levels, and I'm going to University for English lit & Creative writing. That's good news, right? Who knows, maybe I'll learn something- maybe my writing will improve.**_

* * *

 _ **That's what I had written in the notes beneath the chapter. I might take a little hiatus from writing, or I might throw myself into it again for a distraction, I'm not entirely sure. It's been a confusing and devastating last few days, life goes on but my furry little buddy will not be forgotten.)**_


	14. Chapter 13, Good Boy

**Sink or Swim | Chapter Thirteen, Good Boy**

I've been lost by the city  
Drowned by the sea  
I've been up on the rooftops  
Still I'm caving in  
You can scream bloody murder  
Loud as you want  
I'm not listening now

 _Broadfields, Young guns_

* * *

Tyler was staring at a dead girl's portrait. It was hard to miss it, strung up to her old locker that just happened to be opposite his own in the narrow hallways of MFHS- " _Where the halls are almost as narrow as the people are minded, kiddos."_ Jamie would have jibed, customary sunglasses in place and the scent of a pre-school joint mingling with spearmint toothpaste.

It was at her locker, now made into its own glorified funeral home, that students and teachers alike congregated. Some people cried, no one he could put a name and face to, but the tears were there. A couple of people were praying, some brought flowers and teddy bears or cut outs from the yearbook photos, a few bibles were strung out around the place, and the items made some sort of a bubble- made people stand back and appreciate the sadness of the situation, and the girl that somehow brought everyone together to mourn. A few brave souls mustered up a smile as they stood there stationary, unmoving in the ever growing ongoing sea of prepubescent on the brink of adulthood that raged against the current, a true cluster of what a small southern state had to offer, wholesome and seedy and true to teenage nature. Some joker even went as far as to leave a joint there in her memory, but no one really laughed, it was almost impossible to find anything amusing in the face of death. Jamie would have got a kick out of it at least, and Tyler could somewhat appreciate the sentiment behind the whole ordeal, tainted by her memory and the thought of how much better it would have been if she were here by his side.

She would have said some real smart shit like she was so inclined to doing, and she would have made the people crying smile and the smiling people shed a tear, because she knew bereavement better than anyone. Just ask the porch, where she spent her days remembering everyone that was gone, or the cemetery where it seemed like the names she associated with accumulated, and the obituary and deaths in the newspaper where the bodies seemed to keep piling up.

Sometimes Tyler forget that Jamie was strangely social in an antisocial way, that she'd talk to the most unsuspecting characters and think nothing of it, not knowing that a bookworm gushed on the inside and an outcast was caught smiling when Jamie remembered their names- and she somehow remembered everyone's name. For a girl who hated popularity contests she sure had been a shoo-in for winner.

He mustered up some kind of smile, a half sort that tugged up at his lips one-sidedly, the pathetic kind he'd offer when Jamie would appear at his window sill and notice a bruise or his tear stained face. As they got older the tears faded, and the bruises became lesser more often than not, but she still somehow managed to catch him by surprise in his most vulnerable and harrowing moments.

All of a sudden he remembered the summer she had gone away, but more importantly he remembered when she came back.

" _I missed you."_

It came over him like the cold that swept over autumn. That's what he had told her, and he found his lips moving softly against the syllables despite no sound coming out, he was frozen miserably in the past, soundlessly lost as unsuspecting peers walked by unaware.

" _I know."_ She had told him sadly, all hollow smiled and knowing. " _You shouldn't though."_

He felt bile rise, his throat convulsing desperately to keep it down, and yet his lips moved noiselessly all the same.

" _I know."_ Tyler had repeated back to her like a promise, and he had the distinct feeling in the here and now that this must be what it felt like to renew your vows.

It was a vivid and vicious swelling in his chest, his heart thumping to it's own beat, and he remembered how he had seen her back then. Incomprehensible in her own right, otherworldly and foreign with a gusto no one could even begin to match- but his friend all the same.

She held out her fist, and he wasn't in the school hallway anymore but his own room a long time ago, everything playing out like a movie scene and he knew exactly what to do like a play rehearsal, a spectator with a script.

" _Do you forgive me?"_

 _Had she looked so hopeful back then?_ He wondered vaguely, _she must have,_ he reasoned, because it was a play-by-play of back then that he was doomed to repeat, and he wished he had never remembered in the first place. Tyler doubted Jamie had ever looked so hopeful ever again, she had always been one stuck in her own luck.

He extended his own fist, cold and clammy skin brushing against the air where their knuckles would meet. " _Just… Always come back, okay?"_

" _Always."_ Jamie agreed cheerfully, her smile slipping from emptiness to earnest, and he felt himself choking back tears as she began to slip away.

" _Wait, where are you going?"_

Unlike back then he didn't get a chance to say anything more, just like she didn't get to come back this time.

 _Something else happened that night_ , his mind screamed, heart still beating fast paced and painful, _don't you remember?_

" _First thought best thought."_ She rhymed at ease, her voice distant- muffled by something along with the white noise of the past, like she was in water or behind a wall, television crackling and static humming as it all came to life in one confusing blur of mental images and sounds.

And not for the first time, Tyler realised Jamie was just out of his reach.

" _Meet me at dawn at the playing field."_ Past Jamie told him, and he was back in the hallway now, staring down at her as grey orbs peered expectantly back up at him. Everything was just the way he remembered it, from her ratty yankee cap to her dirty red chucks, freckles dotted across the pale grief of childlike opulence.

He blinked once, gasping for air- like he had been submerged somehow, held down under and drowning, swimming fruitlessly before something gave way and he held his head above water- and with a start he found himself staring at a picture of a dead girl rather than the little girl he once knew. The artificial lights of the school buzzed dully in his mind, and his heart beat gave way to ease once more as he stood there motionless, as if nothing had ever happened. His shoulders slumped, and he rested his head against the cool metal of his locker, to hide from her picture as much as to relieve the cool sweat that had taken its hold.

Breathing heavily his eyes fluttered open, feeling drained he began systematically stacking his books and somehow managing to get the right ones for his classes into his bag. He was suspended in an inbetween state, neither here nor there, stuck between reality and the cold terror of memories. He thought absently that he would never feel warm again.

He was tired of feeling sad.

The idea to go find Vicki Donovan came over him suddenly, washing away the grief momentarily, they'd had a thing going on over the summer and he knew from experience that she wouldn't say no.

He pushed all thoughts of dead girls and playing fields at dawn away from his mind determinedly, they had sworn never to talk about that night ever again.

Shouldering his backpack, pushing away from his own locker as he slammed the door shut and shoved past onlookers brusquely, he set his sights on the fire exit where the stoners pit was. He ignored the nods from the guys on the football team, the flirty smiles of cheerleaders and resident mean girls, and he paid no mind to the people he barrelled through in order to get down the corridor. Very little mattered to Tyler Lockwood, fewer people still, and these people simply didn't make the list, hell, they weren't even on the waiting list as far as he was concerned. He only cared about himself. The only other people that could have got a look in were Jamie Gilbert and Uncle Mason, and neither of them had bothered sticking around.

At least Jamie had a good excuse for abandoning him, for leaving him in this hellhole all alone.

He got out the door, walking fast, and it wasn't hard to find her among the other town druggies.

Being with Vicki simultaneously made him feel less alone and more alone than ever before, and that was the kind of thing that attracted the temporary presence of those stuck in the limbo of lamentation. Vicki Donovan definitely had a type, and judging by Jeremy Gilbert passing her pills in the middle of the pit he supposed her type was Jamie Gilbert's bereaved friends and family.

"Hey, Vicki." He called out, watching her eyes jump straight to his sauntering figure and the simpering smile that lifted up her lips. "I knew I'd find you here with the crackheads."

She looked strangely happy for a girl who had just been thrown into the category of crackhead, and he knew she had only heard the part where he said he was looking for her. The desperate and self-deprecation poured off her in waves, and for half a second he was hit with the realisation that so often invaded his thoughts that Vicki Donovan would never get out of this town. Never kick her pill habit, stop smoking cheap shit she couldn't afford, worrying her little brother, becoming more like her Mom everyday, let her daddy issues dictate which asshole she'd invest her time with next- There was a lot of things she'd never get out of.

She was a piece of ass he'd kick to the curb eventually and he was her getaway ticket, a breath of the finer things in life of which she'd never get a taste. That was the truth. She just didn't know it yet.

Elation met indifference.

"Hey." She greeted breathlessly, siding up to him. Cheap perfume and nicotine stained breath enveloped him, and there was nothing affectionate about how used to the smell he was.

Jeremy Gilbert was still standing there like he had nothing better to do, staring at them warily. The kid had the hots for Donovan, Tyler knew, and that was just fine as far as he was concerned. He was used to having things other people wanted but could never have, he had been best friends with Jamie Gilbert after all.

"Hey, Pete Wentz called, he wants his nailpolish back." He spoke offhandedly, a half assed greeting at best. Isn't that what you do with your best friends annoying kid brother?

"Pete Wentz, huh?" Jeremy repeated, unimpressed, "How old school 'T.L.R' of you. Carson Daly fan?"

Tyler heaved a heavy sigh before moving quickly, not liking the way Vicki threw herself into the mix and ran her nails up and down his chest. It was too familiar, like she had a hold over him, which she didn't.

"Woah, Ty, be nice. Be nice." She cooed, pushing her body into his in an annoying fashion, and he was getting pretty bored of her trying to tell him what to do. "That's Jamie's little brother."

Annoyance flooded through his body, and he hated that he stiffened against her touch at the mere mention of her name. He liked Vicki because she kept his mind on other things, namely the most enjoyable way to get into her pants (it wasn't as good if she was being _too_ easy), and something inside of him was furious at the fact that she had the gall to so much as mention Jamie's name.

"I know who he is." Tyler shot back absently, something strange washing over him along with the distinct feeling of being watched. "I'll still kick his ass."

For a moment he thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye, but he pushed the thought away, putting it down to paranoia or a trick of the light.

He spared her a fleeting glance, wondering idly just how stupid she was. Of course he knew who Jeremy Gilbert was, and of course he knew who he was related to-

" _Meet me at dawn at the playing field."_

Tyler refused to acknowledge the sudden cold air or the voice that called, staring at nothing with a stubborn tick in his jaw. _Go away Jamie,_ he demanded, _you're dead._

" _But I'll always come back, remember?_ _ **Always**_ _."_

He pulled Vicki in for an abrupt kiss, falling back into a familiar routine as his lips moved roughly against hers and he was able to push everything else away.

While Vicki felt a warmth surging in the pit of her stomach, filling her chest with a fluttery feeling that made her want to smile so wide her cheeks would ache, Tyler felt nothing but cold and afraid.

* * *

Billy couldn't stand cemeteries, but then again he had never had much patience for kids- Jamie made him do a lot of things he didn't like, and for whatever reason he didn't seem to mind it at all.

He sat with his back resting against the cool stone of her gravestone, separate from her Parents shared marker, and he thought the distance between them was fitting. He never did quite forgive Grayson and Miranda for dumping the kid on him, and not because he didn't want her but because he saw how painful it was for her. A part of him reckoned that Jamie never forgave them for it either, how could she when it hurt so much? It was a soreness he knew well, one he had carried for a long time, it never really went away no matter how long he licked his wounds and cowered in the corner, isolated from his golden brothers and their perfect lives. Except they weren't so perfect after all.

When his brother had told him Jamie would be staying with him for the summer he couldn't help but remember his own banishment, old wounds tearing at his skin and festering beneath the bottle he held tight in his own hand. It wasn't a nice feeling to be unwanted, just another nuisance to be gotten rid of in time. It was something Grayson would never have been able to understand, the golden boy that he was, but his daughter had felt it's cold and clammy grips all too readily.

So he hung onto the phone, the cord falling idle from his hands, feeling the damp fear take over his body. He'd wanted nothing more to say no, to simply hang up the phone and go drink himself stupid. His mind was teeming with the past and all his regrets, the isolation and pure vindication, Gray's laughing eyes and John boy's brotherly nudge- it was all gone within a blink of the eye, and he felt his mouth go numb, thick and heavy and unable to force the words out.

It was strange to think how long ago that had been, and how that very same fear soon became counting days with dread because she'd have to leave. He didn't regret his counting, the tally marks engraved in bone and brain matter, because their days had been numbered after all.

The truth was that Billy had tried to keep his distance, he really had, because he'd be damned if he let himself be thrown to the curb once more by some Gilbert. Blood or otherwise.

He had never married, never had a family of his own, had never given anyone that chance to abandon him again. Instead he had bottles, piles upon piles of empty bottles, a sea of bottle green and murky brown, stinking to high heaven above and the pits of hell below. An open flame would have darn near killed him. Life became a spectrum of colours from the clear fluid of vodka to the warm amber of whiskey, different sized glasses ranging from pints to shots and broken shards, the stench of stale cigarette smoke to the dankness of an alcoholics sweat, his home and the familiarity of a prison cell blurring until it became one.

The sight of Tinkerbell Jamie Gilbert had brought it all back, the tenderness of solitary confinement and deprivation, the dull ache of being jilted by the people he loved most, and she simultaneously made it better and worse.

He smiled at the feeling, lifting his bottle so it met the light, seemingly winking at him as the glass gleamed sharply then dulled to a cloudy green once more, and he tapped it against her gravestone with a _clink!_

"Here's to you, Tinker." He saluted glumly, "And here's to being unwanted and alone."

He downed his beer in one lethargic gulp, a lax stream of suds escaping his mouth and trailing sluggishly down his chin. Billy let his eyes flicker shut as to drown out the sun and the image of a little girl smiling idly at him, and he cracked another bottle open against the stone with a practiced hand, downing half the contents in a shiftless swallow, lowering it only to wipe his mouth and chin clean with a heavy hand.

There was quite the collection of empty bottles appearing, and he'd have to clean them all up before he went. Jamie wouldn't have minded, she would have joked that the decor was quaint, but somehow he couldn't see the general public of Mystic Falls having the same sentiment- or the rest of the family for that matter.

Roscoe snorted after sticking his snout into the bulb of a daffodil, sneezing and blowing petals to the wind. Billy chuckled, reaching for the mutt foundly and pulling him close, smirking softly when the old hound complied happily, burrowing his soft mane into the crook of his owner's arm as he was placed in a familiar and comfortable hold. The dumb mutt had grown on him, he'd admit, and he was grateful to have something of Jamie's. He still remembered the day she'd chosen the little runt, and instead of feeling happy he just felt depressed at the thought.

Billy had his arm around him like a headlock, and he rubbed his fist frantically into just the right spot at the crown of Coe's head. The dog's paws dug into his leg like he was trying to strike gold, and as Billy shoved him friendly the big baby pounced, pinning his lean frame to the grass as the two scrapped.

Roscoe panted happily, barking madly as he sprung and ducked and licked his way closer to victory- THE MAN was giving him a good run for his money though, scratching him behind the ear in a way that made his right hind leg thump like crazy. He didn't mind that THE MAN smelt like day old booze and stale smoke, or that his shirt was damp with spilt liquor, he just liked the breeze and the closeness he felt to THE GIRL. She was good at this game too, a champion even, and she would have gave him such a good belly rub that his tail would have been wagging for ages, even after the playtime was over.

As THE MAN shifted his weight, turning Roscoe over so that he could rub his belly, the canine stiffened some, his ears standing alert. Someone was here, he could feel it in his bones, and the gentle crush of leaves beneath feet was enough to confirm it. But then he sensed something different entirely- something feral.

Roscoe would die before he let whatever it was near THE MAN or the place where THE GIRL's memory lay at rest.

"Hey, boy, what'stha matter, huh?" THE MAN soothed in a gentle baritone, "I didn't hurt ya, did I?"

His voice was sluggish and slurred, and while Roscoe didn't know what THE MAN said as he didn't speak or interpret the same way humans did, he knew the soothing tone and gentle voice that would normally set him to ease. Yet he stood stiff, growling into the clear day, the fog beginning to roll in unnatural and damned.

Roscoe didn't know what a vampire was, he didn't know about the mystical creatures or the things that went bump in the night; but he knew it was a threat, and he'd be damned if he let THE MAN or THE GIRL get hurt. Not again.

* * *

The night bled into day.

She liked the supermarket, time had no place there, it was just another common courtesy. It was the same artificial white light, no matter what time of night or day- it was always the same. it defined them, the ageless and timeless youth, stuck in transience and ending in nothing.

Jamie usually liked those free days she got underneath the roof of the retail stores and the sterile linoleum floors of the halls. Today was no exception, even if Kai had tried to kill her. The supermarket had the same aseptic hue, unbothered and unchanging, and the appreciation of its unworldly aesthetic stemmed from a time in her life where stability was unheard of.

Kai's volatile actions were not a betrayal, their relationship was a mirage of blurred lines and ever changing moods hanging by a string. His actions, against her, did not even equate to what her Father had done.

Jamie believed in love bites. She believed that the people in your life, within a spectrum of relationships and bonds, hurt you in some way or another.

The notion that someone you are romantically involved with leaving a bruise on your person was striking in her mind, and while other girls would condemn them or confess to them Jamie was left with the clear idea in her mind that people would leave marks. The people you loved would hurt you.

In some warped and misshapen fashion, Kai and Jamie did love each other; their emotions towards one another magnified by the sole dependence on having one relationship and bond at all. They were friends, that much was clear, and they cared for one another- and so they bit down as hard as they could, two wounded animals looking to leave a mark more damning and cruel and vile than the other, to get there first, because otherwise they'd be done wrong again.

In Jamie he saw his sisters and his Mother and his brothers and his Father and all the things they ever denied him and the wrongdoings and the misspoken words and the way in which they ruined him.

She knew it, too. She didn't care. And so she let him rage against the motion, to lash out and retreat with his tail between his legs, while they slighted each other with witty wordplay and sly comments. Verbal abuse was the closest to a hug in their twisted and warped look on the world.

The world was the same, there was just less in it. And somehow, between the two of them, they had managed to fill it.

With music, nights at the bar, driving long winding roads, talking, every little touch, the way they sent each other knowing looks, the stupid names they called one another, sleeping on the hood of the car- Kai and Jamie were far from empty, and yet the loneliness seeped in.

She wondered, while wandering sterile halls with buzzing lights going off like a pulse, if she had left a body behind. In that other world that seemed so far off, where reality was made, with all the people she had left behind, and all the people that had left her. Time didn't exist here, she knew that now, knew it all too well as her back ached and the bruised skin stretched over bone. Instead she had her head, where numbers somehow equated to days and for the life of her she couldn't convert the figures into something tangible, the first equation in her life that had thrown her for a loop. Human contact and communication was void, just a big black hole of brain matter and particles that she sentimentally referred to as Kai, and for all she knew he wasn't real.

Kai was here now, she could feel it, could hear his blood stained chucks squeak and squeal against bleach shined tiles and his bat dragging against the floor with a sharp and lazy scrape. He had come for her, finally, and she let her eyes sweep over the kiosk calmly.

Had his siblings heard those very same sounds before they were stabbed and strung up? She imagined so, and she wondered if he thought of her as family yet, if this was her initiation. Her membership to a grim and dwindling club.

Cigarettes.

What had Rita told her, all those years ago and counting? Those things'll kill you. Something like that, something of that sentiment. But cancer couldn't get her here, it couldn't wrap it's poisoned hold on her lungs or grip her with death's cold and clammy hands. She felt nothing.

She lit it, breathing in the tar and the toxins and the cancerous chemicals that made her head spin and gave a sickening grin that pulled up further than usual.

Kai was her cancer, now. Her silent killer that crept up on you unaware, the lump that made her fret and worry, the tumorous growth beneath skin the crept through her hollow chest and gripped her heart, the wart on her brain that blew into pieces and bled and bled and bled- Kai was her own brand of death, waiting all this time. He was the bleeding on her brain.

He was close, she supposed, because she could feel the way the air hung heavy with suspense, how her breath caught on the next pull as the oxygen went stale in the room and she choked. _One, two, Freddy's coming for you, Jamie!_

She was grateful that he took a pause before his next step, it just felt right- appropriate for the evening. Like a man with his top button done up and his tie pulled taut, black leather shoes shiny as spit.

 _Heeeere comes Johnny!_

Did she even like horror movies, she couldn't remember.

"Look at me, Jamie."

He was behind her now, the gig was up, and she watched her cigarette burn slowly. It was strange, the way a coffin nail goes down, and she supposed it was her very own way of measuring time. The soldier's minute, the dead girl's drag. Jamie knew she was going to die when that cigarette burnt out, her life would extinguish and she'd burn out like stars so often did, she'd die in five minutes or fifteen years, and she found herself warming to death.

" _LOOK AT ME!"_

Kai had swept his arms across the desk, taking the cash register, phone- cord and all- and everything else off the surface. Each object seemed to clatter and clang in a slow, harmonious racket in Jamie's mind, like those slow motion scenes in the movies. She didn't flinch, didn't make a sound, just stared on aimlessly as her cigarette ran out.

Jamie would be no more. The cigarette was near done now, and she would be no more.

He held her face to his own, gripping her chin in his hands, wielding and melding her flesh at his own will as dead eyes penetrated vaguely the face of her killer. It was like a child coercing his favourite toy, keeping it for himself, commanding it like an all out entity. She didn't protest, she accepted his bruising touch and his anger and the bile of his words- People like Jamie Gilbert were meant to be mistreated and strewn about the place, it was in her DNA.

"Why didn't you tell me you were a witch?" He demanded, shaking her a little like a rag doll.

Unseeing eyes blinked, and her lips turned down in a frown. "I don't know what you mean, Kai. I'm not a witch, I'm human."

He let go of her chin, she could feel her skin all red and burning cool with the air.

"Listen to me." Kai told her, gripping at her arms tightly. "I'm a siphon, I drain the magical properties and absorb them, making them my own. I can siphon you, Jamie, which means you possess magic. I want to know how."

Jamie frowned softly, and Kai had never seen her look perplexed before. She just simply knew things, or rather, she accepted everything for what it was, she had no need to look confused.

"Neither of my parents were magic, i didn't even know Witches and Warlocks existed, it's unlikely-"

"But you're here, aren't you?!" He demanded then, shaking her just a little, and she didn't know if it was because he meant it or he was trembling. "This entire place, it's mere existence, is magical. You're here for a reason, and it has to have something to do with me being able to siphon you."

"Are you trying to tell me I'm a witch?"

"No," he shook his head, pausing slightly, "no, I don't think the magic belongs to you. It's strange, it's like it surrounds you, when I touch you it doesn't feel like it's coming from a direct source, but rather another, one that allows me to absorb magic through you even if you're not the root of it."

She blinked, "Does that explain the dreams, I wonder?"

"Dreams?"

"It's like there's a connection, and I've never understood it fully. I'm able to communicate with someone, or multiple someone's. They're an energy, kind of, I can see them and touch them and hear them when I dream, and sometimes even when I'm awake. But ever since I came here it's like the connection has been muted, like there's something blocking it."

"The real world!" Kai told her excitedly, "The connection is from the real world, Jamie!"

She felt strange, like she'd just opened her eyes, and her mind was racing, heartbeat thumping.

"So are you going to kill me or what?"

It had been hours now. Hours since he lost his cool, since he felt the pure ecstacy of siphoning, since he found her in the store and when she said those words.

" _So are you going to kill me or what?"_

He should have killed her, that much was clear as she bounded around the room getting everything ready, but he didn't have it in him. He blamed the high from the magic, he blamed her sudden usefulness, he blamed everything else but himself.

Jamie shrugged off seemingly nothing, but Kai could see the way the weight lifted off her slender frame and how her shoulders eased out of those horrible bruised knots from the car crash- the ones she had had since she'd came here. She stood taller all of a sudden, with her hands in her pockets and her head held high, and he wondered if this was what Jamie Gilbert was really like. He wondered if he even knew her at all.

"I think it'll hold, I think it'll really kill me." Jamie told him, "This rope is the only thing keeping me here."

She was tying the noose. Two of them, one for each. Maybe one spare just in case.

Wouldn't it be embarrassing to fail your own suicide?

She'd sold him on a suicide pact the way a salesman sold real estate or how a broker would sell you shit shares in some made up stock market.

He watched her.

She had found this old record player, told him it sounded better than a CD, that it was superior somehow. It wasn't an explanation, not a proper one, but he found himself believing her anyway.

It was _Lust for life,_ an Iggy Pop song. She'd murmured something under her breath, he didn't know what. How was she supposed to explain that she fell in love with this song after watching the same movie over and over in some boy's bed? That they'd play this exact song in the car as they ran red lights and their eyes glazed over on some drug made in someone's kitchen.

" _Here comes Johnny… Yen again."_ Jamie sang idly, thinking distinctly of her own Johnny and his too blue eyes. " _With the liquor and drugs, and the flesh machine. He's gonna do another strip tease."_

He watched her dance to the beat, the way she moved as she skirted round the place, the neon sign of the bar searing her image into his brain as she closed the curtains and closed her eyes. Her hips swirled and twirled, feet tapping in a lazy beat as she let her body do its work. This would be the last time he saw her, maybe.

" _Hey man, where'd you get that lotion? I been hurting, since I bought the gimmick- about something called love, yeah, something called love!"_ She crooned along, an easy smile at her lips.

Jamie was smart, but you didn't have to be a genius to figure that out. She wears his shirts that are baggy on him never mind her, and she wears a Yankee cap backwards over shortly cropped curls. He watches her smoke cigarettes by the pack, notes how she bites her nails to shreds and picks at her skin, she's got calloused hands. Somehow she's content to live out of a car, and she never minded sharing the backseat with him or sleeping on the hood of the convertible she had taken a liking to. Just like him she despised her Father, and just like him she had a twin that sometimes got on her nerves. She spoke about her friends sometimes, and somehow he was included in the list, pretty high up if he said so himself.

And now… Now she was dying. This was Jamie on her last leg standing, getting the stage ready one last time, and he felt terrified.

Jamie placed a pretty rope necklace around her neck, and just like she would a chain she adjusted the size with nimble fingers and a mindlessness to her movements.

" _That's like hypnotizing chickens."_

Her eyes met his, grey on blue, not the same shade as Johnny's.

" _Well, I am just a modern guy."_

She offered him a smile, it felt like his heart stopped.

" _Of course I've had it in the ear before."_

"C'mon, Kai."

"' _Cause of a lust for life. 'Cause of a lust for life- I got a lust for life!"_

He stood on a pedestal of his own now. Jamie was the lighter load, and all of a sudden his chest seemed to tighten and his heart seemed to pound. Say he was too heavy and the rope snapped.

But what about the rafters, what says they'll hold? Jamie could die, she could leave him, and he'd still be here. Alone. Again. He was just about to say something- say what he didn't know, but something- when she looked at him. Grey eyes met blue, perhaps for the last time even though it only felt like the first, and he lost his breath and his voice as she took the plunge. She lost her breath too.

" _I've got a lust for life!"_

* * *

 **(AN: And with this chapter comes the end of Sink or Swim part One, which consists of Jamie's childhood to her death and thus the pilot episode. With the end of this instalment comes a new beginning, and as such there will be a time skip.**

 **This fic will continue as it has done the last year, meaning new chapters will be posted under Sink or Swim and not under a new fic. The story however, will no longer have an angst ridden and death centric feel to it. Jamie may have changed, along with everything else in this story.)**


	15. Chapter One, Lust for Life

**Sink Or Swim | Part II. Chapter One, Lust for Life**

In the deepest ocean  
The bottom of the sea  
Your eyes  
They turn me  
Why should I stay here?  
Why should I stay?

 _Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, Radiohead_

* * *

They were walking across a field, like one she had dreamed of a long time ago, with sunflowers blooming and golden light dusting down on them in beams. Jamie was walking ahead, him only fifteen meters behind, and she wondered what it would be like if she was somewhere else- if there were people walking that very same trail in some other world.

She had been in the prison world for over a year, and she didn't know if she was sixteen still or older. It was a big part of life now, the not knowing and the pointless pondering, and she supposed age meant nothing anymore when you were suspended between nothingness and oblivion. Those two weren't the same thing, there was no unsureity about that as far as she was concerned.

She hadn't stepped foot in her family home ever since that fateful day, where she strung herself up with no care in the world. Jamie was gone, Tinker was here.

"Tink," Kai called from those fifteen meters in the past, "why did the mushroom go to the party?"

Her silence, like usual, did nothing to deter him. Sometimes she figured that Kai had been alone for so long that the silence meant nothing to him anymore.

"Because he was a _fungi._ "

His tittering laughter sent her on edge, and rigid muscles moved at a quick pace as she fought not to run. Sunflowers, christ did she hate sunflowers.

Over the year, once their initial hiccup was over and they realised she could be siphoned, realised she couldn't die here, he had killed her three times. She didn't even struggle, and in his own way Kai was concerned. He stared at her like he had broken his play thing, like she was his own brand of toy that couldn't be fixed. Sometimes he threatened her, willing her to react- to fight back, to do _something._ Anything.

She didn't.

He liked to hold her hand, to brush his arm against hers, like a cat he sought her touch, and he let the delightful buzz of magic overtake him once more. She didn't struggle against that either.

Kai was the cancerous tumour in her lungs, and Jamie was the crack to his addiction.

One time he awoke to her smothering him with a pillow. He wasn't sure if it was on purpose, nightmares had taken over her life, and she would have a hard time waking up even with her eyes open. He wondered what she dreamed of, if he had become a thing of her nightmares.

Jamie dreamed of her Father, of Johnny and Rita.

Grayson would cut her to shreds, operate until her skin held nothing but bone shards and fleshy fat. He'd remove each organ with deadly precision, the steady hand of a surgeon marrying her insides and branding them with his touch. Sometimes, she'd turn over on the operation table and moan in pain, and Enzo would stare right back at her, a knowing look in her eyes.

In her nightmares Johnny and her were married with kids and a picket fence, he had finally succumbed to alcoholism and she a legal drug addict within her own right. She found her baby's dead body in the crib, vile spew marring it's chubby purple face, the stench making her heave. That baby's name was Jamie. She resented her just like she imagined her own parents had.

She dreamed of Rita's rotted corpse, her bony hands gripping her arm, dragging her down to soil and dirt. Rita would cry out for her, beckon her to her grave, she was the dust catcher beneath Jamie's bed, sunflowers blooming where her tongue should be.

She drowned. The ominous presence in her subconscious lashed out. Became more vivid, though she couldn't remember a thing when she woke up.

Jamie was no more.

She could barely stand being in the same room as Kai anymore, it reminded her that she was alive- somehow. She liked to pretend, when he was in another room or trailing a while behind her like he usually did, that they were dead. Kai was dead, he wasn't there, and she, the dying, would soon perish. It was the only comfort she had.

Some days she'd be normal again, like nothing had ever changed, and Kai lived for those seldom times. It was afternoons where she put the grimoires away and smiled at him from above a ratty novel that he loved best, or when she drew him once more and he didn't have the heart to complain.

The reason they were roaming sunflower fields and barren countryside was the same reason they'd pretty much been doing everything else for the last few months- They were looking for a way out, piecing magical artifacts together like a puzzle.

There was a downfall to artifacts with magical properties, the useful ones anyway, and that was that they required a magical element in the first place. The ones discovered were locked away with various forms of magic, such as runes or tricky rituals, not just simple spells that Kai could siphon from and transfer the energy into something of a fixture, malleable. And of course it wouldn't be easy, this stuff was to witches what Leonardo Da Vinci's artwork was to culture, it was kept under lock and key. So Jamie went about cracking the codes, and in part it was the only thing keeping her sane. She applied her knowledge of chemistry to magic, seeing what elements would work in order to achieve something plausible, and to her reading a grimoire was like studying from a textbook. Though it was marginally more interesting, she'd admit.

She was the missing link, the magic that one needed in the first place to crack the vault, and so her and Kai went about creating an impressive collection of artifacts and ruins that would make the world tremble before them. There was a purpose behind it all, of course. They were trying to find a way to leave this place, and imagine Jamie's surprise when she discovered they needed Bennett blood of all things. Bonnie had always been a pain in the ass, and even in the afterlife she was still just as annoyingly in the way as ever.

Bonnie had been a big part in Jamie and Elena's drifting, she was a judgy little thing and was the first to make a sly comment concerning Jamie's habits. The drinking and the drugs, they'd been bad, but the way Bonnie went on about it you would have thought Jamie was a drug lord in god damned Mexico or Brazil, Columbian cartel or something like that for chrissake, and Bonnie hadn't even known the half of it.

She didn't know Jamie sold cheat sheets like a broker sold stock, wasn't privy to the blackmail and extortion that Jamie liked to press down on periodically, so that the pressure got just a bit too much and the faculty began to sweat. Bonnie Bennett didn't know that Jamie once pulled a knife on a kid in an alleyway after a drunken brawl, that she took the SAT test fifteen times under fifteen different names, that she and Tyler shoved soil into the old man down the streets exhaust and could have caused an accident if the car hadn't given out so easily. Bonnie Bennett didn't know shit, not when it came to what Jamie was doing, She didn't know what happened that night on the playing field, neither-

And nobody ever would, she told herself gently, they'd sworn a pact after all.

"There's a house up ahead." Kai told her, but she wasn't listening.

In Jamie's mind she was reliving the past, she saw Tyler's face pale with terror and her bloody palms as she pressed her hand to his. Blood brothers. HIV, hepatitis B or hepatitis C, the whole damn alphabet for all she cared. Bloodborne diseases a transmission away, because for some reason a blood pact had more weight than words ever could.

"Jamie?" He said, "Jamie, there's a house up ahead. Jamie, are you listening? Jami-"

"Yes, Kai." She sighed, still walking. "Yes, I see it."

She steeled herself then, because she couldn't be stuck in the past when she had something to do, something that tied her to this world and the so called 'present'.

Bloody palms disappeared.

"Can you feel the magic?"

"Faintly." Kai informed her, "There's a barrier, some kind of blockage that's keeping the full potential from being released. I could siphon some, maybe."

She sighed, again. Jamie spent a lot of time doing that nowadays. "Fine, take my hand."

His touch made her want to vomit, and she felt no rush of magic or any draining process at all. Kai's giddiness at the magic coursing through his veins meant nothing, then, and she simply carried on walking as he prepared himself.

"I'll take the inside, you scout the perimeter. You know the drill, don't die."

She headed towards the house, taking in it's overgrown terrain and the rotted floorboards of the porch. The artifact they were currently occupied with wasn't exactly rocket science but it was a matter of temperate, an amulet containing magical properties that were confined by the encasing of the object itself.

The door was already ajar, and she imagined that it would bang against the frame and the swollen floorboards in the windier seasons. She opened it with her converse clad feet, for some inexplicable reason she couldn't bring herself to touch it with the bare hand of her skin, and she supposed magic did tend to have a certain repellent quality on non-magical beings.

The mouldy and worn welcome mat glared up at her, a ragged mess of red fabric gone wildly discolored, almost daring her to wipe her shoes, as if that'd make a difference. She didn't look at the faces in the portraits or the way the wallpaper was peeling from the walls and hanging down in dirty damp strips like cobwebs.

"In death we found ourselves." Jamie told no one, and she wasn't looking for someone to listen at all. "We found ourselves through loneliness and the past, or the future depending on how you look at it. And there is no was. Just now, just today, everyday."

Her hands skimmed objects on shelves, her fingers came away matted with grime, she didn't care.

Some things had to be spoken aloud to truly be understood, and some people spent their entire lives seeking out their feelings put into words. Jamie had a newfound appreciation for little things like that, but it wasn't often that she'd indulge the break of silence she had come so accustomed to with her fine ears.

Wandering through a desolate house, not having worn skinny jeans or her Yankee cap in a year and not being able to imagine adorning them once more, she let her eyes fall as she imagined people and the hustle and bustle of a non-isolated life.

She did that sometimes, let her mind drift.

And maybe she wished she never had to be chained to earth in the first place.

Perhaps she was speaking to God, that's something that occurred to her as she was staring at her red raw knuckles. She wondered if she should say a prayer, if God would hear her if she did. It wasn't her God, it had never been hers, it had been her Parents and her friends and her school, but not hers- because Jamie Gilbert didn't have a God. It had been a lifetime since any God had heard her, had taken the time to listen, and she didn't know who she was or why she was here. Why she was still alive. Why she was ever born in the first place.

Isn't that why she had killed herself? _The first or the second time?_ her mind supplied, and she frowned. She had wanted to die as Jamie, and now she had lost herself.

She looked upon the moth eaten curtains and the sunlight that streamed through the soot stained and broken glass of the windows, and the home air felt stifled by the smell of decay and disuse. It was musty and old and abused, and a part of her felt the same.

The artifact wasn't hidden here, she didn't have to look properly to know that, it was a decoy.

Kai opened the door with a bang, and she listened to his loud steps with closed eyes. Maybe there was a God, and maybe he was the biggest fucking sadist the world had ever seen.

* * *

"I can't do this, I can't do it." Nathan cried gently into the darkness, all twitchy eyed and rocking body back and forth. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept, or if he ever had, and eating wasn't something that even registered in his mind anymore.

The witches wailed and cried, and he let out a low and drawn out moan as he clutched his head and tore his hair.

"No, I can't do it, I've tried. I've tried, but I can't do a spell like that, I can't bring a- a girl back from the dead- it's impossible."

He was all skin and bones now, his clothes hung off his skeletal frame in unbefitting rolls and crevices, assumed to create the illusion of weight and failing miserably. Instead the fabric consumed him. In an attempt to bring back the dead he himself had become lifeless, his once bright eyes gone dull and his hair limp and deflated. Perhaps he had been handsome once, young, and now he was just the fallout of fate.

"Please don't make me do it." He sobbed, body wracking and trembling with each gluttonous and desperate heave of stale air. "Puh-lease!" He cried out helplessly.

He began the spell again.

* * *

"Are you sure it's this way, Tink, because I'm pretty sure the magic felt a lot stronger near the house an-"

"It was a decoy." Jamie insisted at ease, trekking up the rocky hillside with her eyes constantly sweeping along the stone wall that was falling apart piece by piece. It didn't look that old. "The amulet isn't _supposed_ to be able to be sensed, remember? That house back there is a failsafe, it's so no one will come close enough to the actual artifact to find it because they'd have to be actively looking for it in the first place. It's smart, something I'd do."

She paused then, a small smile coming to her face as she looked over her shoulder at him. "It's fun to confuse people and watch them make fools of themselves without you having to try in the first place, don't you think?"

Kai let out a sudden bark of a laugh, and he felt a certain skip in his step as they carried on with their hike. He wouldn't complain anymore, not about the uneven ground or the fact they'd been walking for hours, not that his nose felt all stuffy from the dust back there or that Jamie had nearly implied he was stupid- None of that mattered, because Jamie was acting more like herself. He'd walk until his feet bled if it meant her good mood stayed intact.

* * *

The wall was important, Jamie knew that. Witches and Warlocks are servants of nature and magic itself stems from nature- So, in theory, a strong magical element buried in the earth should have some effect on its surroundings, thus maintaining some kind of balance. She weighed all of these possibilities up in her mind, it was a second nature kind of thought process that didn't really involve much thinking at all on her part.

It wasn't old- the wall, that is- not as old as some of the ones this far out countryside, and yet it was cracking and losing stones. She was hiking up the hillside, and Kai was lagging behind her once more, and she squinted into the sunlight as she kept an even footing on the uneven ground. Sometimes she could see Kai trip out of the corner of her eye, but she didn't comment on it, he wasn't the kind of person to pay much attention to the ground he was walking on and she wouldn't tell him what to do. She wasn't his keeper.

No, the prison world was. It was to keep him under lock and key, and she supposed his family, or what remained of it, would be the keepers.

Her eyes adjusted suddenly to the shade, a tree blocking the high up sun and providing some reprieve. It looked pretty, with the golden shade spilling through the leaves and branches, pouring down in healthy and withered flares on the weathered terrain. The wall broke at the tree, so you could step over it easily, and there were strange rocks that didn't look like they belonged around here, not in the sun perished states.

Jamie began to walk quicker, and Kai's head shot up in surprise.

"Did you find it?!" He called excitedly, tripping over his own two feet to catch up to her. "Tink, did you crack the code?"

She didn't give him an answer, but she had reached the tree and dropped to her knees.

He nearly ate dirt as he stumbled towards her, watching her bent frame dig stones and dirt underneath the shroud of leaves that hid the sun's harsh glare. Kai didn't understand what was happening, but the anticipation was killing him nonetheless, and he found himself more prone to tripping over as he strode over to her.

Her digging had come to a sudden halt, and Kai's breath caught in his throat at the sudden surge of magic that hit him like a twobyfour-

"Bingo." Jamie exhaled, a euphoric laugh bubbling at her throat.

* * *

Nathan was doing the spell, and more amazing still- It was working.

He spoke the words through the pain and the nausea, tears streaming down sullen cheeks and leaving streaks through the harrowing dirt. It hurt, of course it hurt, there had to be a balance that was how magic worked. He could feel the witch's ghost of a touch, more gentle and careful than ever before, they cradled him and enhanced his magic, he the gateway to the living world.

The full moon glared at him, he didn't need candlelight or a fireside to see, instead the world was sheathed in blues and an iridescent glow. The Witches were more impatient than ever, more powerful than ever- Something was happening, he knew, something that corrupted the balance of nature. And somehow, what he was set out to do, might help fix it in some way- He didn't know, he just knew that the magic coursing through his veins was more than his own.

He cried out in pain, but he said the words of the spell all the same. It was too late to stop now, it was nearly over, all his hard work. But it hurt, and he was weak, and he just wanted it all to end. Which it would. Tonight.

* * *

" _Ah, fuck!"_ Jamie hissed, and the amulet clattered against the workspace as her hands flew to her stomach.

It felt like she was being stabbed, like something was being forcibly torn from her insides out. She felt something twist in a sickening and life threatening knot, and she whimpered helplessly.

"Jamie?" Kai called out, and he actually sounded _concerned._

Her face morphed into a pained scowl, and she panted through her teeth as one arm smacked against the table to keep her upright. Oh, God did it hurt. She groaned pathetically, and she didn't understand what was happening to her, but she realised it was most likely _magic._ She'd just tried to open the amulet stone, hadn't she? To reach its core where Kai could siphon the source power more effectively, because everything she did was so efficient. It had to be the amulet, there was no other explanation, but then nothing ever seemed to make much sense anymore.

Kai was standing in front of her now, moving towards her with a look of wonder on his face. He went to touch her and immediately snatched his hand back, the hissing of a burn screeching in the air and the sickening scent of sizzled skin surfacing. He sucked in a sharp breath, cradling his offended appendage to his chest, and he looked worried.

"What did you do, Tink?!" He demanded, desperately.

She let out a pain stricken cry as she doubled over, hitting the deck hard. "I don't _know_ , the magic should have been c- _ah!- contained!"_ She let out in a guttural teeth bared _hiss_ , and her fist hit against the floorboards again and again and again.

Kai was saying something, but she couldn't make out what through the pain.

"It's definitely magic, I can feel it- Jamie? Tinkerbell, tell me where it hurts? Where is the pain, Tink?" He was getting frantic now, going off the deep end. It made him angry, that he had to watch his friend writhe around on the floor in pain and he couldn't do anything. He couldn't even touch her, couldn't tell her everything was alright because he didn't know that and he wouldn't lie to her.

"It _hurts!"_ She cried out, choking on her own breath and words, "Mali, it hurts!"

"Where does it hurt, Tink, tell me where it hurts and I'll make it better." He begged of her, and he was on his knees now too, watching her curl up into a ball and retreat into herself as she cried out. "I- I can help you, I'll make it all better. I promise."

Jamie felt a tugging sensation and chills went up her spine. It felt like she was being ripped in two, like she wasn't anywhere anymore. She saw her Mother's worst days when her glassy eyes stared straight ahead unmoving, looking tearful and tragic, and Jamie felt herself drowning a little. Her Father as he stared her straight in the face as he slammed the door, the way her body involuntary flinched because she knew he wished he could hit her that hard too. Elena and Jeremy sitting in an empty house. Tyler sitting in the pews of the church at her funeral. Enzo staring at her, begging to be set free, and the fear she felt. Uncle Billy drinking his days away. Aunt Jenna tearing her hair out from stress. Zach Salvatore drinking alone with a pack of marlboro by his side. Johnny and his unblinking blue eyes. William Richardson weeping over his wife's shallow grave. Fields of sunflowers and an open grave. Roscoe barking as the birds began to sing. Flashes of the faces from her dreams. The lesson she had learned early on in life, the hardest one she'd had to come to terms with- You didn't have to be in the water to drown. And most vivid of all was the fear and betrayal in Kai's face.

It hurt. That's the only thing that was legible in the jumbled mess of her mind, and she saw it more clearly than she'd seen anything in months. He was staring at her, empty. And it was all her fault. Because she was leaving him. It didn't matter that she didn't want to or that she was willing to stay, because Jamie had never gotten a say in where she ended up.

Kai scrambled forwards, arms reached out desperately, hopeless but somehow hopeful and so scared of being alone. Deep, cold fear washed over him, his pale face screwed up in horror.

White light flashed, blinding.

Jamie saw it too, the light that took her away from this God awful place and maybe the only person in the universe that she couldn't bare to leave. It was conditioning, the solitude and sole company of one other, and the only consolation was that she knew she was dying for real this time. She knew this light, the kind that burned your eyes, she'd seen it once before when she was drowning and the end was near, before it gave way to black and she'd found herself here. She was dying, she was finally free, an-

Jamie was gone. The light died down and the eclipse began it's soulless damned cycle, and Jamie was no more.

" _NO!"_ He screamed out, angry and wounded and backed into a cage once more, but he couldn't keep up the volume for long, for some reason unbeknownst for him his throat felt hoarse and his eyes ached. " _NO- No, no,_ no… Jamie, don't leave me. Please? Please come back."

She wasn't there, but he couldn't see clearly anyway, and he told himself that when his sight returned he'd see her there on the ground. His eyes, however, cleared up all too quick, and the blurry images became too clear and sharp as his eyes adjusted and it was hard to pretend she was there still.

He stared into the nothingness that his only friend once occupied, and more than anything he wished he could touch her or hold her hand one more time, not to siphon but to simply feel skin on skin contact. He hadn't been allowed to touch anyone, not even when he was in the real world or when he was a child, it had been too dangerous. Jamie had been the first physical relationship he'd had, the only corporeal contact he could ever maintain without hurting someone. She had been his _friend_ , and he would reluctantly admit that she meant something more than 'useful' to him. And now she was gone, she'd left him just like everyone else.

"Jamie, take me with you." Kai moaned, voice thick with emotion and a sudden headache coming on. It was a sudden onslaught of feelings that he couldn't place, and his head was cloudy and thick and he couldn't make out why. "Don't leave me alone here."

His hands were embedded in the soil, and they clenched and stung as rocks and wood chips planted themselves into his palms. His voice, now just a broken whisper, reduced to a pathetic mewl, cried out.

"I don't want to be alone… Don't leave me here alone."

Jamie died that day, not for the first time. Jamie was no more, not for the last time. And a little bit of Kai died that day too, May 10th 1994.

* * *

 _ **(AN: Poor Kai, man. I feel so bad for him, because being trapped in the prison world alone must of been hard but having someone there with him only to be taken away all of a sudden is just… heartbreaking. I'm an evil bitch.**_

 _ **I wonder if anyone can guess what happens next? I'm so excited to be able to write something other than Jamie and Kai, because while I love them it simply dragged on- which conveys what it was like to have to live like that in the first place. Maybe now Jamie can actually LIVE, rather than just function because she has to.)**_


	16. Chapter Two, Begin Again

**Sink or Swim | Part. II Chapter Two, Begin Again**

I know it's been a while  
But I will not fake this stupid smile  
'Cause you robbed me, fed me the line  
Your bounty was me, took all you could see  
And worked just side by side  
The trust and love we'd abide  
Until you left home thrust with the tide  
And put this hate back inside my eyes

 _Smile, The Story so Far_

* * *

Jamie woke up on a familiar sofa, beneath a pile of blankets that smelled like home. Something in her ached, and it yearned, but for what she did not know. Wiping the sleep from her eyes was of no concern, she felt sweet in that moment, tired but more rested than she had been in a very long time, and she was ready to stay wrapped in those blankets and on that sofa all day.

"Jamie, baby, you've been sleeping all day!" Miranda laughed.

She ran a hand down her face, breathing a sigh. Groggy, she sensed something awry. It felt wrong, she hadn't been woken up by her Mom since, well, since she could remember, truthfully. Usually it was her trying to wake her Mom up, wasn't that the norm around this house? All of it muddled in her brain, and she could feel the contentedness and the sleep induced bliss fade away.

"Get up, sleepy head!" Her Mother smiled gently, patting her knee softly.

Jamie felt like flinching.

"What's happening, Mom?"

"You have school, sweetheart." Miranda informed her in soft tones, "You must have fallen asleep while reading, again. It's no bother."

She groaned. School, she had school, that made sense. Except it didn't, did it? Because when she thought about it hard, she realised she had no memory of going to school yesterday, or the day before, and the day before that- School wasn't in her curriculum anymore, and she couldn't fathom going there today. It was strange, she vaguely remembered drowning-

"The holidays passed quick, didn't they?" Miranda mused aloud, a sly smile on her lips as she tidied the room. "I'm sure you're just _dying_ to go back."

Jamie considered her carefully, peering up at her with distrustful eyes. "Y-yeah. Yeah, I guess." She cleared her throat softly, "Mom, where's Lainey and Jeremy?"

"Oh, don't you mind them." She told her, "They left early to walk with their friends. Now go on, you better start walking or else you'll be late."

"Sure thing." Jamie agreed slowly, sitting up with trepidation.

Her Mother looked young then, in that moment. There was no signs of oncoming wrinkles or blemishes, no bags under the eyes or sallowed cheeks. She remembered her older, more tired and distraught. She was wearing a pretty red dress, the colour of blood, and Jamie felt ill at the sight of her unfolding an ironing board like it was an everyday thing. The Gilbert's hadn't lived an apple pie life, no matter what they'd want you to think.

"Or… You could stay awhile, I suppose." Miranda suggested slyly, "Skip school and spend the day with me, hey?"

"No!" Jamie shouted, scrambling from beneath the blankets, and she felt awfully stupid doing so. She took a deep breath, and with a normal tone she went on. "I mean… No, that's alright. I'll go."

She backed away from this stranger, the alien standing in the middle of her home living room, her Mother. "See you later… Mom."

The door slammed shut behind her.

It might have been strange, that she was already dressed, shoes and all- but Jamie was a little more preoccupied with figuring out what the hell was going on. She didn't know what had gotten into her Mother, this whole situation seemed terribly _wrong_ and alarm bells rang in her mind. It was frustrating, because she couldn't put a finger on what it was that was so unsound about the ordeal other than her Mother's mood.

She nodded in greeting to a very hungover Zach Salvatore, offering him a worried smile as she hurried down the street. It occurred to her then that her Mother must have been drinking, that was the most plausible explanation. It didn't feel right, and she didn't smell any booze on her, but it made the most sense, and she wasn't in the mood to really figure much out today. Sometimes, as she had learned the hard way, the truth was better left unturned.

"Drink, yes." Jamie said to herself, absently. It was familiar, talking to herself like that, something she couldn't remember doing before, but it came on all too natural. "Hooch in her morning coffee, vodka maybe… No smell."

Vodka in coffee was one of her Mother's old tricks, along with popping valium. Jamie felt more relieved at the idea of it than she'd like to admit.

Her long spindling legs stopped mid stride, and she found herself looking up at her Father's practice. Should she- _No._ Her chest felt heavy, and the stifling Virginia air made her choke on her own breath. Still, she found herself walking towards it, hand reaching out towards the handle hopelessly.

The bell gave it's tinkering ring, and she crossed the threshold carefully.

She roamed the aisles with a forlorn feeling settling over her, a hopeless and childish feeling coiling deep down in her stomach. Slender hands dragged against shelving and jars, padding softly against discrete items and sterile pieces. Slipping round corners, back thudding against the bookshelves, she felt breathless and expecting. What was going on here? Why did she feel so strange all at once? Jamie didn't have any answers, and she was shocked to see the peak of her Yankee cap adorning her head and shielding her sight.

Of course she was wearing it, she told herself, she wore it everyday- and yet…

An inhumane sound ground out, making the floor vibrate and the rafters shake, a horribly unnatural electrical thumming encased the building and the lights began to flicker. Her heart began to thump along with the noise, and she screwed her eyes shut tight. Oh, God, no. No.

She took careful steps forward, one foot in front of the other, and her eyes fluttered open once more, grey orbs wary and frightful. Her hand reached out again for the handle of its own accord, she was a victim to her own reckless and mindless whims, a little girl once more scared of what she'd find but all too curious for her own good. It scared Jamie, the lack of control and heedless decisions, her impulse reducing her to a marionette of her own impetuous nature. She was a kamikaze set to self destruct.

One step, two step, three step- pause. The sound was louder, now, coming from the door beneath the staircase to her right. The air around her crackled with life and an artificial energy. She took a carefully measured breath, and continued down the stairs.

When she reached the last step the record player stuffed into the corner between bookshelves and cabinets came to life, the needle crackling against the vinyl record. Jamie gave a start, and she recognised the song with scary disbelief.

" _This is the end, beautiful friend."_ Jim Morrison of _The Doors_ sang in perfect melancholy, " _This is the end, my only friend, the end."_

She moved closer to it, the eerie sound and the depressing lyrics. Her hand moved to knock the needle off course, to finally regain some sense of contro- There was a violent _BANG!_ As the door flew open, a blinding white light and a horrible sound, and a dark figure stood tall and proud in its frame.

"You think of me as a bad person, Jamie." Grayson's horrible and warped voice called out loud and accusing, "But you forget that you're of my blood, that you're just as much of me and your Mother. You know about it, heredity traits and nature versus nurture, you've read all about them in those books of yours."

"I'm not like you." Jamie murmured, backed into the corner all small and feeble, like a child once more. The electrical sound was ringing in her ears at a high frequency, the lights flickered as he began to take steps forward in a jaunty and jagged string of movements. "I'm not."

She was staring at the man of her nightmares, adorned in his bright white doctor's coat and pressed slacks, the monster hanging over her head and scratching at the floorboards beneath her bed. Jamie was terrified of this very same conversation, because she didn't want to think about the likeliness that she was like him, didn't want to acknowledge that that's just exactly what she had strived to be as a child. Wasn't that why she read the medical books in the first place? _No!_ Her mind screamed, she had been curious, she wanted to know how her own body functioned, she wanted to _understand-_ Not carve another being open over and over again. But hadn't she thought her Dad was so great for being a doctor and understanding those very same things in the first place?

"You're a bad person, Tinkerbell. You do bad things." He spoke over her, and the light began to flicker wildly, the noise rising and his voice rising still, screaming and shouting. "Who drove your Mother to drink, hey? Who smoked cigarettes while the woman next door was dying of cancer?"

"Shut up."

"You lied and stole and cheated, Jamie. How's the drug habit? We should have called you Charlie, Charlie by name and liking your Charlie by nature! Think of all the trouble you've caused, what with the police turning up every other day and the school constantly buzzing on the phone. Blackmail and extortion is a felony offence, but I bet you know that, too, maybe you read about it in those books of yours."

"Shut your goddamn mouth!" Jamie shouted, but his voice kept getting louder and the electrical buzzing made her ears want to bleed, and it seemed like he was closer still everytime the light burst back into life before dying once more as he crept closer and closer and closer.

"Do you know what the worst sin of all is, the sin you committed everyday of your life?"

The light burst.

She could only hear her own pathetic excuse for breathing, a low panting as she clawed at the neck of her shirt, begging for air.

Suddenly his voice was low and the buzzing stopped.

Everything was still in the basement.

"Ingratitude. That's what you're guilty of." He told her, sadly. "The greatest sin of them all, Jamie. In-gra- _t-itude."_

Jamie wiped away her tears, and she was scared. "No, Dad. I'm grateful to you, I'm grateful alright."

"Thanks to you I learnt the most valuable lesson of all." She told him shakily, and an unruly sob tore from her throat as she felt the ghost of his touch creep down her arms and the bruises that rose to the surface. "Keep cutting till you find what you're looking for," His touch stilled, and she forced herself to go on, "and when you do… Keep cutting, still."

He laughed, quietly at first, and she imagined him smiling down at her like he did when she was a kid. It grew, in volume and in body, and he shook and heaved and ran breathless as he laughed and laughed and laughed, his hands scratching her skin and hitting her brutally as she screamed.

 _Everyone's a bad person, we all do bad things, but it's the smart ones you have to look out for, see?_ Her mind screamed over the sound of her and her Father's voice mixing. _The doctors and lawyers and politicians that'd sooner shit in your cereal than see you eat it. People like them call shit sugar and expect a thanks._

She told him, over the laughter and her heartbeat and the darkness, she spoke the words; "And I _hate_ you. I hate you but I'm all the more grateful for it! That's my greatest sin of all. Love thy Father, even when he's the biggest piece of shit on earth!"

He screamed with laughter, long piercing cries sounding as his vague figure threw its head back and arched his body.

She screwed her eyes shut, her hands pressing down against her ears so hard she felt a dizzying pressure build up and set the world off kilter, and all that could be heard was her sickening pants as her body heaved one breath at a time- in and out, in and out...

When she opened her eyes again the light was back on, and she was alone.

" _Father, yes son, I want to kill you."_ Jim Morrison sang sadly, " _Mother, I want to…"_

"Fuck you." Jamie breathed out, her head knocking against the wall as she collapsed into ease, her body uncoiling and unwinding as long limbs sprawled out against the cold cement of the basement.

She was covered in a cold sweat, and she wiped her brow feebly.

The door was open, still, but she had no desire to take a look around. Isn't how this whole mess started to begin with?

She knew now what she hadn't before. Why this whole thing confused the shit out of her and scared her so bad she wanted to cry.

Her Parents were dead, and so was she.

"Dead, Jamie." She let out in a loose exhale, a breathless chuckle escaping her. "Stone cold dead."

"Kill, kill, kill, kill, kil-" The record player, beside her on a cabinet, skipped, and the haunting lyrics filled the room. "Kill, kill, kill, kill, KILL, KILL, K _ILL, KILL,_ _ **KILL-"**_

"This is the end…" Jamie's voice sang over the noise, "My beautiful friend."

* * *

Everything seemed brighter, his senses sharper, and his eyes opened softly to the greenest forest bed he had ever seen. Flowers and bark and fresh soil evaded his senses, the too bright sun streaming down on him in cold and crisp rays, streaking against the dirty skin of his naked form as he slowly began to sit up.

His lips opened tentatively as he took in the cool morning air, his eyes flickering to the sun as it shone behind the branches and leaves of tall trees that hid the clear skies. He could see every branch, could count each leaf if he wanted, could see how each one was slightly different in its variation of colours and stems and veins.

He pushed against the ground, amazed. It was beautiful, a sight to behold, and Niklaus Mikaelson had always held beauty with high esteem, he lived for moments like this.

In that moment he didn't want to look away, he was content to just stare up at the first thing he saw in his new hybrid state, and he told himself he would remember it forever. He promised to paint it, his mind was racing with the paints he'd mix to reach just the right hue of green and all the shades that endowed the trees with passion. Reds, blues and yellows- a blank canvas and a brush or two.

Fabric rained down on him softly, landing either side of him and brushing against the ground as they were strewn about.

"You've been busy." Elijah remarked, leaning against a tree and staring at his brother with a mix of trepidation and amazement that was barely concealed.

Nik heaved a heavy breath, "That was amazing…" He moved, leaves rattled and crunched. "How long has it been?"

Elijah's gaze settled on him, and reluctantly he spoke. "...Almost two days. Full moon came and went and you remained a wolf."

"I can change at will, then." Nik observed, doing up his belt, deeply satisfied. "It's good to know." He smiled, feeling powerful and fulfilled, like never before.

* * *

Jamie was staring at her own headstone. Her grave, her _home._

It read:  
 **IN LOVING MEMORY OF**  
Tinkerbell **JAMIE** Gilbert  
May 23 2009  
 _You blew with Your wind, the sea covered them; They sank like lead in the mighty waters._

Her Parents' graves were over there, far enough to set her at ease, but it caught her eye all the same. They really were dead, and so was she, it was unnerving how right that fact felt as it revered in her mind. The lionize of her passing would have been a sickening feat, and her mind strayed to Lainey and Jeremy and what they must have went through, orphaned and alone.

She just had to see it herself, she'd had a gut feeling ever since she'd seen her Father in the basement. In this dream, or hell, or limbo- whatever the hell it was- she had a feeling this was where she was supposed to turn up to next, just like with the way her legs had taken her to her Father's practision despite school being in the other direction. These things had a _purpose,_ and with all that talk of sinning and being a bad person… She supposed it was a punishment, that this was her chance to repent for her sins and move on, finally.

"Well, lookie what we have here!"

The voice sounded behind her, and she whirled around to see a familiar sight.

"Why, hello there, dollface." Rita smiled, and she was smoking a cigarette atop some poor sod's headstone. "What's the matter wit'ya, looks like you've seen a ghost."

"What are you doing here, you're dead." Jamie told her, choking on her own vocal cords.

"So is everyone else, didn't you get the notice?"

There was an old radio sitting next to Rita, and Jim Morrison played, still.

" _This is the end, my only friend, the end."_

"Yes." Jamie whispered brokenly into the wind, her voice seemed to carry. "Yes, I noticed."

Rita looked young, too, and her grave was near as well, probably adorned with god damned sunflowers. She was wearing a low cut black dress that sparkled, and her skin glowed with warmth and the height of health, pearls on a string winding round a long neck and ending at the top of her cleavage. She looked classy and young, like Jamie might have if she were born decades before. Yet she hadn't smoked a cigarette in her life, Jamie knew, and her grey hair hadn't looked so silvery and voluminous in real life.

" _It hurts to set you free, but you'll never follow me."_

"Thank you so much for dreaming of me, baby. I always knew you liked me a little more than you should." Rita admonished with a wink, "Ain't that why you got that boy of yours, the one with the blue eyes?" She batted her heavily lined baby blues mockingly.

"What? No. You were my friend, Rita, I-"

She cackled delightfully, "Oh, child, I do miss teasing people." She got quieter then, more solemn. "It gets lonely, here. There's no one to talk to, and you know I love a good chat."

" _The end of laughter and soft lies."_

"I'm sorry you went." Jamie told her tearfully, "I'm sorry you died and I kept on living."

"You call that living? Honey, I call that grave digging. Go on, keep on walking. Life goes on, you see, and if you don't hurry you won't catch up!"

" _The end of nights we tried to die."_

"I'm scared, Rita, I don't know what's happening to me."

"Aren't you tired of being the ghost of Mystic Falls? Get going already, I can't stand whiners."

"Where do I go?" Jamie begged.

"Follow the light, sweetie, you should know that by now."

She saw it now, a light that wasn't there before, and she spared Rita, her friend, one last glance as her feet began to move- seemingly with a mind of their own.

 __" _This is the end."_

The light began to retreat, to move further and further away, and Jamie started to run. She hit her knees into marker stones and tripped over piles of soil concealing bodies and dressed up corpses, she knocked into flower vases and ornaments adorned, she flew through the graveyard desperate and hastily- arms outreached, begging to grab hold of the light like she'd been told to do just because some dead lady had told her so.

White light, blinding and painful, took hold, and blindly Jamie continued to run. She fell, one last time, into a freshly dug grave- She screamed.

* * *

She woke up in the forest, alone and shaking, her pretty face dirty and sunken. The bruises from the car crash were back, she could feel them, but she didn't know they were from the accident at all.

Her vision blurred, all she saw was the light and the greens that shone brightly. She had dreamed of a wolf, a beautiful wolf with molten gold eyes that caught the moonlight.

Tired, she let her eyes shut once more, too weak to keep them open, and she slept.

* * *

"Why is it that you refuse to tell me where they are?" Elijah mused, referring to their siblings, and not for the first time he weighed up the likelihood that his brother had been lying all along.

That's what he did, he lied and cheated and left a path of ruin and destruction in his wake, and he would never be able to accept those that let him down. Instead, he daggered them, kept them in boxes on display like his own private collection, presented them like the paintings in his gallery room, and saw nothing wrong with it. But Elijah had hope, for the first time in a long time, that his brother could be redeemed.

He was a hybrid now, and the chance to kill him had passed. All Elijah had left was that irrefutable hope, and he clung to it like a child would a toy.

" _Relax."_ Niklaus spoke sharply before relaxing again, easing himself into the role of holding the upper hand. "What part of all is forgiven have you misunderstood? You will be reunited soon enough, is that not enough?"

"You know, Niklaus," Elijah spoke tersely, "I know you best, a thousand years my testimony. And nothing good comes from your stalling."

His brother grinned wolfishly, looking back at him from over his shoulder, and Elijah felt the stirrings of hatred deep within the pit of his stomach, familiar and burning strong. And yet, there was love there too, familial and sentimental, and he had hoped his words would ignite the same in his brother, and they did not.

"Good things come to those who wait."

Niklaus walked ahead, he had insisted on walking in the first place. He felt a free man, and like a free man he wanted time to appreciate what the world had to offer.

Elijah saw him stop in his tracks, but he didn't rush to his side, mostly because there was no need. He spotted the girl that lay in the clearing, scantily clad in damp clothes and looking disheveled and dirty.

"I thought you said you cleared up after me? This doesn't look disposed of to me, brother." He called back mockingly, almost chiding.

"She's not one of your victims, they were a sight more gory. You didn't take this path at all, you came from the East, not West." Elijah frowned, because she almost seemed familiar- this girl in the woods who was demure in her unconscious state.

"Well, Elijah, she's yours." Niklaus commented offhandedly, vindictive and amused. "I had my fill last night, surely it's your turn."

"I decide what to do to her?" He mused carefully, not willing to show his odd investment in this strange girl for fear that Niklaus saw.

"Like I said, she's yours." His brother insisted, mock generosity serving as his amusement.

Elijah gazed down at her upon a bed of moss and leaves, the way her curls blew softly into her closed eyes and tickled her slightly reddened cheeks. She wore a men's long sleeve shirt, too long for her and practically see through, it clung to her body like a second skin, and his eyes skirted around her chest and the gentle rise and fall it did to its own tune. Her arms were tangled in the fabric, like she had been clinging to it before she fell.

He felt something, then, and he thought of Rebekah, his sister.

"We'll take her with us." He commanded, quiet.

"Good idea, brother. I'm sure Kol will want a snack when he's awake."

Funnily enough, Elijah thought that Kol might like this strange girl a little more than he should if he was awake. And Niklaus was too ready to spare her...

She awoke, unknowingly to him for the second time, with a gasp.

The first thing Jamie saw as her eyes opened was a Godly man, with dirty bronze skin and smiling blue eyes like the sea. Good and gold curls cropped short framed his gaunt face, with high cheekbones stained with a healthy dose of colour and lovely pink lips pulled in a tight smile.

"Careful now, love." He spoke softly as she sat up too fast, and her eyes snapped to his face once more as she got her barings.

She was in the woods, somewhere, alone. Barely dressed and drenched in what she had the sneaking suspicion of it being salt water.

"What's your name?" His voice rang out in a clear british accent, and the birds sang unperturbed.

That question, though she didn't know why, made her heart clench and her head whirl, a deep rooted ache seeping through her like a tidal wave. It was so familiar, like something she had asked herself time and time again, but she didn't understand why, couldn't remember the turmoil of finding oneself and the desperate ways in which she searched ceaselessly.

 _What is my name?_ She wondered, and Jamie came to mind- _No_ , a voice supplied, _Jamie is dead, you're no one now_. None of this was clear to her, it was subconscious, she was simply going through foggy motions.

She caught snippets though, more attuned to her own thoughts than most people, and she supposed that wherever she was before that she had to be more privy to her mind's mindless onslaught.

All she heard was J, just one letter, and in that moment it defined her.

Her gaze settled on another man, darker, with brown eyes and a clean suit. He was looking at her strangely,

"J. my name is J."

Nik stared at this strange girl they'd found in the forest, watching the golden light fall down in its soft and speckled way in stuttered folds through the foliage. She was dressed in rags, her clothes damp and spilling off her slight shape in waves, not looking at all like they were from this time.

As if sensing his predatory gaze she looked up slightly, meeting his scrutiny dead on. Not even the voice in the back of her mind telling her to look away could break her daringness.

"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Jai." He smiled suddenly, and she looked away with a start.

Elijah looked surprised as his brother took off his clean shirt, and he caught the girls attention once more as he held it out for her to take.

"My name is Niklaus Mikaelson, but you can call me Nik."

* * *

 _ **(AN: In many ways I wrote Rita in a way which represents life, and I love writing her dialogue. It's some of my favourite moments, because I think we all need a friend like her in our lives. Also, Jamie meeting Klaus and Elijah? I was so excited to write this chapter and I can't wait to elaborate more on her relationship with Klaus especially- as you might be able to tell by the influx of updates that seem a bit strange for me.)**_


	17. Chapter Three, The Monster

**Sink or Swim | Part II. Chapter Three, The Wolf**

Everybody else is just green,  
Have you seen the chart?  
It's a hell of a start,  
It could be made into a monster,  
If we all pull together as a team.

 _Have a Cigar, Pink Floyd_

* * *

The trees rustled, shuttering like living things, and Jamie shivered, froze to the bone. The light leaped and danced to the wind's tune, she watched it sway across Nik's defined face and lurch against his dirty torso. The bright gold hue seemed the same shade as his hair, spinning and changing like a pirouette.

He was staring down at her expectantly, and his white shirt was held out to her as an offering of

some sorts, and she felt the way the dirt embedded itself into her bare skin as she moved to take it. She had never felt more naked and alone, draped out on the forest bed with naught but a wet shirt and panties covering her soft flesh and pale skin not unmarred, the subject of two men's stares with a cascade of gold illuminating and defining her pale limbs.

Niklaus' brother, as she soon came to know, was called Elijah, and he was nothing if not proper, perhaps a little stiff. The light hit one side of his face, and he stood brazen as the shadows swept across his him, aging before her eyes. He looked like a statue to Jamie, an immovable object, and she realised there had been a drastic shift between the two brothers then.

With a slender hand she accepted the fabric, and she thought it was the softest thing she had ever felt then as it slipped into her idle hands. Nik held her gaze for a moment, blue on grey, and she saw something flash in those eyes, an understanding of sorts between them.

She turned away from the men and their probing gazes, peeling the shirt from her torso with little to no shame but mild discomfort- one that stemmed from the stiffness and soreness of her shoulders. Jamie wasn't to know that the bruising was there, that her back looked like an abstract painting of purples, blues, indigos, greens and yellows that smeared and bloomed across the delicate canvas of her skin. She let this strange man's- _Nik,_ her mind supplied, _he said to call him Nik-_ shirt encase her skinny frame, and it came down to mid-thigh and served to cover her up once more. Still, she clutched to the fabric of her old shirt desperately, not knowing why but understanding that it was the only thing she had left of herself now.

Elijah cleared his throat softly, and she glanced at him over her shoulder. "May I inquire about the bruises on your back?" He spoke carefully, eyes sympathetic and kind.

"Bruises?" She echoed quietly, eyes flicking to her fabric clad shoulder uselessly.

Niklaus, who noticed she was a little too much on the skinny side and had taken in the sight of her bare skin with a dull anger that coiled in his chest and made him clench his fists, made a soft sound of understanding that garnered her attention for the time being.

"Jay, what is the last thing you can remember?"

Frowning, she turned to face him properly, tilting her head a little to the side. She opened her mouth to reply on instinct, but words seemingly failed her as her eyes widened a little. "I…" She trailed off unsurely, and her grey orbs flitted to the damp shirt in her hands.

"It's okay." Elijah told her, soothing, "We can work something out once we return to our lodgings. Until then, don't worry."

"Okay…" She breathed out, looking perplexed and grateful as she stared down at her hands. They were scratched, she realised, red and raw around the knuckles like she had hit something. It seemed easier said than done as her troubled gaze turned thoughtful, all the while staring at her hands, searching for some sort of clue.

She felt troubled, and a face came to mind in painful and quick succession.

"Kai-" She choked out, and her heartbeat stuttered as his stupid laugh rang through her ears. How could she forget his mischievous face and careless laugh? Ocean blue eyes that were oh so wrong, and the mask of a wolf in sheep's clothing. The slaughtered siblings, she could almost picture them hanging from the stairwell and the blood that coated the halls of his Oregon home, the way his moods changed like the tides as he spoke about them, his twi-

A searing light flooded her senses, and she felt two strong arms wrap around her as she fell.

She had tried, no one could say Jaime never tried. It was as Lainey's smiling face filled her mind, the ghost of Jeremy's arm slung round her shoulder as she stared into doe eyes and blew her brother's brown hair from her mouth with a laugh, that she felt the memories slipping again. It was gone, and she wouldn't remember them again for a long time, but she was used to waiting by now.

Klaus had caught the curious girl in the woods, could feel her heartbeat dull to a healthy pace as supposed sleep overcame her famished body. He encased her within his arms, jostling her like broken glass to get a better grip as he stared down at her in all her pale glory. She, this Jaybird with the broken wings, was clutched to his chest like a child, head lulling to the crook of his neck like it belonged. The hot lull of her breath brushed against his filthy skin in a searing spot before cooling and igniting once more, he stiffened, at first, before sagging a little with a horrible sense of relief. It was reassuring to him, the feel of her breathing, and as he listened intently to her pulsating heart he felt his own sync up in union and amity. He felt confused and warm, the sudden affection rushing in his gut was a commodity, but his hold became more secure, an iron fence put up between her and the world.

"Elijah, give me your coat." He instructed, wasting no time.

His brother studied him relentlessly, the way in which he held her gently and how concern had swam through those cold blue eyes as he reached for her purposefully. Elijah thought then, as he slipped out of his blazer, that perhaps there was hope for his brother after all, and that something peculiar was most certainly taking place.

This girl's life had left his hands just as fast as it had fell to him, and just like how Klaus had given him a choice he had taken it away just as easily. The girl was his responsibility now, that much was clear to Elijah, if not fully registering in his brother's mind.

Klaus draped the jacket over her like a blanket, and it didn't go amiss the way his fingers paused as it neared her jaw, taking the time to brush a stray curl from her forehead gingerly- almost tender in its touch, as the light shrouded her bruised face. He could feel Elijah's scrutiny, but like with Mother and babe the skin on skin contact branded them with some sort of camaraderie and a sense of care.

It had been Elijah's choice to spare her, or had it been his choice at all? Because Klaus knew it would be up to him to take care of her, that his brother would be indisposed before long- That's why he had insisted on walking in the first place, he thought absently as he met his brother's look dead on, because the clock was ticking.

"Let's go."

They walked on, a man on death row unbeknownst to him and the executioner holding the girl close to his heart. Nik walked to the beat of her heart, unknowingly, and with each step he felt something more for her. It was of no use, though, because his mind with otherwise preoccupied with the traitor hanging behind his back.

Jamie dreamed of the trees that moved like living things, and she heard a voice that spoke clearly in her mind through the wind that whistled its melancholy song and the flashes of the past that showed through the shroud of leaves.

 _Reunited, yes._ That voice said, _I shall uphold my end of the bargain, he should never have raised arms against me in the first place._

The voice faded, and she saw a boy all alone crying into his hands.

" _Please come back, Tink. Don't leave me alone again."_

She felt like crying, then. And the world went to black.

* * *

She woke up, again. She wondered how people never tired of it, the mundane task of waking and having to face the world once more. It was something she was coming to hate, only able to remember it thrice, but the quick succession of which it had occurred made her want to never wake up again.

Her body felt clumsy and sore, a deep ache burning through her as stiff joints dissolved into an array of knots and bruises.

Eyes fluttering open, blurry with sleep but grateful for the dimmed lights, the sight she was greeted with was a sharp jawline and the scratch of facial hair against her cheek.

Klaus could feel her shift in his arms, could feel her breath go uneven as she slowly came to her senses, but he was more interested in the voices that could be heard upstairs. Stefan Salvatore, what an interesting development.

She made a soft sound, but made no move to speak as his eyes slowly fell to her wide grey orbs. The voices stop, but he heard something that sounded out, the distinct _thud_ of flesh hitting a hard surface. He hoisted her legs a little higher as he moved his finger to his mouth, shushing her soundlessly. The girl, Jay, nodded her head just a little and did as he asked, and he smiled at the response.

He opened the door, knowing they were there and knowing that Katerina knew he was nearby.

"Klaus, you're back." She pulled herself and the Salvatore brother away from the wall, never sparing a glance his way. "Look who decided to c-" her voice trailed off as she took notice of the girl in his arms and his lack of shirt, her charade giving way to shock.

Jaime felt it, the eyes piercing every visible piece of her body in an almost clinical way, and she borrowed further into the familiar hold as a means to escape. It was uncomfortable and hostile, and after catching a glimpse at the woman who had spoken she felt an astute pain ringing in her head.

"You just keep popping up, don't you?" Nik mused, and his thumb rubbed circles against the hollow of Jay's knee in a comforting manner.

"I need your help." She watched the solemn boy step forward, he was steadily ignoring her and she felt all the more grateful for it. The woman was staring, still. "For my brother."

"Well, whatever it is, he's going to have to wait a tick." The boy came closer all the same as Nik spoke. "You see, I have an obligation to my brother that requires my immediate attention."

He started walking, her still wrapped in his arms, and then, his blue eyes met hers once more, "And I'm a little preoccupied with our guest, here. See, she was actually invited." He looked at the boy again, and he practically exuded control with his mocking smile and surefire way about him.

The others weren't watching as he lowered her to the sofa, his hands squeezing her malleable flesh before giving up its hold altogether. He was looking at her intently, and as his hand crept towards the inside pocket of his jacket he carefully raised a finger to his lips once more, asking for her silence as the furniture hid him from the intrusive presence of the others.

Absently, she noted that Elijah was speaking, and he sounded apologetic. And then, in the blink of an eye, Nik was gone-

"-Reunite me with my own." He was saying, caught up in his own guilt and desperation.

Jaime turned to face him, utterly confounded, but she made no noise and brought no attention to herself. There was fear there, most definitely, but even more horrifying was the curiosity that filled her at Nik's disappearance act.

She saw him, standing behind his brother all of a sudden, in a space that had been otherwise unoccupied just then. There was no motion, one minute he simply wasn't there, and then he was, and he smiled a conspiratorial smile at her, looking her dead in the eye.

"And so I shall."

Elijah turned, and like a dance Nik followed through gracefully, stepping in at leisure in a waltz called death.

Jamie heard Elijah scream, and it was a horrid sound, and then she watched his skin grey and veins rise against his skin like thick and unruly roots that burst from the surface in a fatal tangle. There was a morbid fascination, a beauty to the scene that felt almost surreal, and she watched a dying man's eyes flash through each emotion as his last conscious moments played before them.

First there was a betrayal, she thought, lips parted in awe.

Nik thrust the blade further, and Elijah gave a hapless grunt, his hand outreached, fumbling ceaselessly for his brother. Jamie watched Nik shush him in a comforting manner, like he had done so silently only a moment before with her. He let the body drop, it felt like an ultimatum to her.

She was sitting there, half naked and scarcely clad in this man- this _monster's_ shirt. Her hands tangled themselves in the soft cloth, her bare legs pulled to her chest, and she fought the impulse to rip it off her body. Cold damp fear rose in her chest, stormy orbs flitting wildly between victim and perpetrator.

Normal bodies didn't dessicate immediately, there was a lack of blood and no major organs hit that could result in an instant death. And the veins- they were horrible, sickening, and so terribly _wrong_. Normal people couldn't move from place to place in the wink of an eye, soundless and seamless- It was abnormal.

"What the hell are you?" Jaime breathed out, gaze glued to the body that adorned the floor and it's ornate fixture, a man reduced to a rug. She felt sick, and she knew then that she was more alone than ever.

"I do apologise, love, I wasn't planning on having guests over, you see." He said by way of apology, but it was everything but genuine, he sounded rather pleased with himself as he stepped over the body at ease.

"That doesn't answer my question." She couldn't tear her eyes from the body- she referred to it as just that, _the body,_ because she couldn't acknowledge the fact that he was a man, a living and breathing being just a second ago, dissociation was a beautiful thing.

"I'm a hybrid."

He appeared before her then, blocking her view, and with a gasp her eyes snapped to his- they flashed a brilliant yellow.

First there was a betrayal, then a grand reveal.

Jamie opened her mouth in a soundless scream.

* * *

 **(AN: Short and sweet, another fast update. Thank you for all the reviews, I'm so excited to write again after such a long time. Everything's been a bit hectic, and I've been a bit down in the dumps as 2017 came to an end, it wasn't my year I'm afraid, but then again neither has the last few years. Here's to a better 2018, or better than it's been so far at least.)**


	18. Chapter Four, Drunks and Dogs

**Sink or Swim | Part II. Chapter Four, Drunks and Dogs**

She may contain the urge to run away  
But hold her down with soggy clothes and breezeblocks  
Citrezene your fever's gripped me again  
Never kisses all you ever send are fullstops, la la la la

 _Breezeblocks, Alt-j_

* * *

Something broke.

Collectively she hadn't even been awake for an hour yet, she knew nothing except that the world was strange and the strangest stranger had turned out to be a monster. The word itself, 'monster', irked her, because she didn't know how it applied to the men she had just met and in what sense it fit, she just knew it was true. _Vampires,_ something in her mind whispered to her, _vampire's are monsters, the creatures in books and movies and media people consume._ So she supposed, in some misfitting and conformation jumble, that vampires were classed as monsters. It didn't fit altogether, none of it was particularly cohesive or linear in her mind, but she thought she sort of understood. Nik wasn't a monster, per say, but he was a monster in terms of what he was.

It was like a dam, each word and each thought came fourth with deep rooted cracks and the embankment gave way to a flood of everything. She didn't remember, not yet, but she felt more like herself without really knowing herself. None of it was clear, but relief and understanding blossomed and bloomed as everything washed over her almost gentle like. She liked the way her head filled and felt fit to burst with opinions and thoughts and ideas, it was comforting. It felt like she was sane once more, that she was alone.

The thought of loneliness becoming a comfort was an oddity in itself, but she reasoned that she could have been a recluse.

" _Now, I want you to listen carefully, don't make a sound."_ His honeydew voice revered through her mind.

Niklaus was a hybrid, a vampire and a werewolf; an anomaly and a recent development. These creatures existed, separately, and he was one of the first among his kind, both vampire and hybrid respectively. He told her all this while she couldn't speak, and she couldn't not hear him while he was relaying all this to her. This was due to the compulsion she was under, he explained that too, she felt her mind tug warily at the strange hold he had over her, and while she couldn't break it entirely she felt some give, relief flooding her senses as the prelude of control registered dully. Golden eyes looked back at her, sharp and molten, fluid in their abuse of her mind and the way the light filtered through the orbs. They were beautiful, and deadly.

When the compulsion ended, and she was _very_ aware of the way his lingering presence left some sense of absence, he informed her that she should not be afraid and that he would not hurt her. Yet. It gave her no reassurance, despite the fact that his eyes were blue again and the red veins had retreated, because she knew what was beneath his humane facade.

She thought, dully, that if one wears a mask long enough then they become so, human's were fickle like that, adaptable. Nik had said he was a thousand years old, and her mind whirled with timelines and historical figures and dates and places- the shuttered light was too warm and too bright for it all, it was giving her a headache. She wondered if she was just a mask of who she used to be.

The illusion of safety, one she hadn't even realised was occuring as he took her away from the forest and branded her with his clothes and scent, broke then. An incurable assumption, one she had been so stupid but entirely helpless to make, shattered then, a million tiny pieces and steep cracks that were hollow and cutting to the touch. Now, half naked and a dim fear in place, she felt like prey. She felt him tower over her, tall and strong- had she not felt his hard body against hers just a moment ago? Been an advocate of his capable hands as he whisked her away from her potential death bed- and she felt unforgivingly _human_ in comparison.

It wasn't that she had felt safe, it was that she was confused and alone and had no idea who she was or what to do with herself. That initial contact, the very first human interaction she had in her brain, was a work of nature versus nurture, and she didn't know as to which way she was inclined anymore. She didn't know if she believed in God, what her favourite colour was, her age, her own name- It seemed terribly unfair, but that resonated in a strange fashion, and it didn't bother her as much as it should have. Unfairness didn't seem to strike her as particularly unusual, if life was fair then she would have her memories intact in the first place. Or she would have been picked up by ordinary humans, not monsters parading around the woods as if they were just like everyone else. A wolf in sheep's clothing.

She felt anger spike in her, and she reverted her eyes to Elijah's corpse to hide it. It was all well and good to be angry, but he wouldn't appreciate it, and he had turned out to be a threat after all. She sought out some purpose in her mind, something she could cling to for the time being, a goal she could work towards to occupy her empty shell of a body with no meaningful relationships or starting points to work from.

"Do the dead frighten you?" He asked with just a hint of a smile, catching the way she stared at the body as soon as his eye contact broke hold. A touch of control and something else entirely.

She shook her head slightly, curls falling into her faux bashful face, "No."

It took all she had not to spit at his feet, because he had entered her mind when she couldn't even make it work properly, her thoughts were the only thing she had left and he could control them, bend them and their misshapen wills for his own purposes. She felt dirty then, like he had molested her in the most intimate manner, and in that moment Jamie imagined driving the stake standing erect in Elijah's chest into Nik's over and over again. She was bent out of shape, she was _nothing,_ not anymore, and something that came clearly then was that she had nothing to lose.

He looked surprised, but pleased all the same. "We're vampires, but also we're something else entirely. Don't worry, Jay, it's not permanent."

It struck her funny, talking of permanence with a girl who didn't possess a shred of it, when she couldn't grasp the concept fully because she had nothing to amount it to. She didn't suppose he'd appreciate her laughter, so she bit her lip, because he liked to think he knew her, that he understood her.

It was clear that he liked to presume as to what she was feeling, to dictate her emotions the same way he had done to her mind. He told her to listen, to stay quiet, and he had done all these things before he had revealed his supernatural abilities, and even more disturbing was how she had obeyed all the while. It wasn't like her, she liked to think, because she imagined herself doing whatever she wanted, but that just confused her fuzzy brain so she dropped it.

She wasn't worried, that was the truth of it. After the initial shock something gave way, a part of her snapped back into place like a lost puzzle piece all the time. It was then, as she stared at an ageless corpse, that she realised she could make this go in her favour, that she was no longer safe but perhaps she could be. She just needed a little time.

Jamie registered all this with a hunger burning deep within her depths, a curiosity that sought out every detail of this brand new foe, all the nooks and crannies of a new world with so much more in it than before. Safe isn't something people craved, and Jamie was aware of the depraved exhilaration that took place then.

"If you'll excuse me, I have an appointment to see to." His polite tone sounded with a soothing quality to it. She had a lot to think about and he had business to attend to. Namely, why Stefan Salvatore had been so brave as to show up here.

She watched him, with slate eyes and a certain keenness; a spark flickered behind them that had been ignited all of a sudden. In that moment she became a little more Jaime. And she refused to be an idle player in whatever game this creature was playing.

* * *

Roscoe felt something, it stirred deep in the woods and made the birds fly west. He liked to chase the birds, liked to bark at them and warn them away, it felt like freedom.

He walked through town, seeing them sit idly atop signs and rooftops, in bird baths and low hanging branches. The ones on the floor didn't get barked at, his gums ached and his mouth went wet as he stared at them, and he crept over. People startled the birds, and that made them hard to catch, and their intelligent eyes startled as they flew away. If Roscoe were human, or something other than the canine he was, he might have hated people. The way humans so often did.

With nothing to catch and no one to play with, he padded along softly, snuffling to himself softly as the overbearing scent of flowers from the garden flared and burned at his senses. He would have dug those gardens up if he could, but they were behind a fence, and instead he carried on walking.

He saw a blonde man sitting on the bed of a truck, except Roscoe couldn't see blonde tones and he didn't know what it was in the first place, and people skirted along the sidewalk and kept their heads down to avoid him. His laughter was mean, and he had sharp eyes.

"Roscoe?" Johnny called out, "C'mere, Coe."

Roscoe obeyed, he no longer took orders from one master alone, the world had become his keeper and it kept him well fed and exercised. This man's scent was familiar, it smelt like smoke and wood and something like soap. He brushed against the man's long, solid legs and the heavy set engineer boots that dangled from the bed of the truck, preening at the attention.

Johnny let his muscular arms slap against the mutt's belly, and his hand fell to the crook of his sternum which he pressed on as he wiggled and squirmed in delight. Roscoe was happy, he hadn't been pet in a long while, now. THE MAN slept mostly, until he didn't, and then he drank until he slept again.

"What're you doing out alone, huh?" Johnny's low voice asked him, "Jamie wouldn't have let you just run off like that."

Roscoe raised his head at the sound of her name, his pert breathing ragged with excitement.

"Yeah, boy, I miss her too." Johnny swore softly, shaking his head.

Behind him, the radio fizzled and crackled with the daily report. " _In the early hours of the morning a man was called in after being found half starved and in critical condition on the outskirts of Mystic Falls, he was unconscious but the authorities were able to identify him as one Nathan Gabriel-"_

* * *

"Nathan Gabriel?" Sheriff Liz Forbes began clearly, waiting for the affirmative nod he gave before continuing. "Can you tell me about the events that led up to being found?"

His guant face stared blankly at her, and she averted her eyes when she met his lifeless gaze, shifting uncomfortably in the equally uncomfortable hospital chair.

"No." He said, and his voice sounded as lackluster as his stare.

She watched him for a moment, the way he hardly took up any space in the bed and how his skeletal limbs were folded unnaturally in front of him, clad in naught but a gown and a sterile bed sheet. He looked like a skeleton, and she supposed he was a heroin addict or some drunken wino that stumbled into the woods to string out his high. Mentally, she went through a list of ecstasy and acid and other drugs that could lure someone into the depths of Virginia's woods, alone with no means of contact or purpose. Hallucinogens did that, she'd seen it plenty of times before. He didn't have a job, people with jobs didn't wander off for who knows how long, and he wasn't on the missing persons list, but most junkie's didn't make it there anyway.

There was nothing she could do, she understood that, there were plenty of unsolved cases stacked against her, glaring at her from her desk drawer where she hid them away like a dirt affair.

"Do you remember when you were found?"

He didn't, she already knew that, he was unconscious and on the brink of death. Scurvy ate away at his teeth, they were yellow and brown and foul, the doctors said it was from malnutrition and found no traces of tobacco or anything else, but an impressive lack of vitamin C was evident through testing. To Liz he looked like a junkie, he spoke like one too, hostile and spaced out. She didn't like people like him, she thought her job would be a lot simpler without it all, and she didn't pity him, not one bit.

"No." Nathan droned.

"Do you remember anything at all?"

"No."

Liz sighed, shifting in her chair. This was going to be a long day.

* * *

Jamie watched the boy writhe on the floor in pain, and she didn't feel much of anything towards the situation, which was worrying. It was hard to come to terms with everything at once, and she was distracted by the body on the floor. Missing a part of oneself was a bother, because she felt like everything was delayed, and she couldn't help but wonder if her reactions were genuine or not- if she was being true to herself, whoever she was.

"I heard about this one vampire, crazy bloke, always on and off the wagon for decades." Nik mused, and with each word he enunciated he let the glass tip one way and then that, on the brink of spilling over and balanced precariously in his nimble hands. "When he was off, he was _magnificent_."

She found herself watching him closely, the biggest predator in the room. It occurred to her that the other two, the boy with the sullen eyes and the girl that kept staring between her and her otherwise occupied companion, were vampires- the boy, certainly, because he wasn't bleeding out the same as she would in that situation, and the girl most probable in the way she held herself.

Jamie spent most of her time avoiding her gaze. It wasn't that she was frightened, or even that she was unnerved, it was that she had more important matters at hand. Nik was the known evil, so she would make sure to cater to what he would find interesting. If she could keep his interest then he would keep her around, and she just needed long enough to demolish her current expendable status, to become some sort of essential in his life. Or to escape.

The problem with escape was her impending freedom, she simply wouldn't know what to do with it. She was resourceful, she knew that much just by the patterns of her own thought process, but someone with nothing tended to stay with nothing for awhile, and she didn't have much time. How long had it been since she had last eaten? What about water- She felt kind of thirsty- In fact, what date was it and where exactly was she?

"1917," he began suddenly, swiftly standing from his haunched position as his eyes burned bright with excitement, "he went into monterey and wiped out an entire migrant village… A true _Ripper_."

The boy let his head lull low, and she watched his jaw clench and his body coil like a viper ready to strike. She felt something then, watching him so passive in his anger, just like she was. Except she was better at hiding it, and she planned on coming out on top after this whole ordeal was over and done with.

"Sound familiar?" Nik drinks. "You see, Jay, Stefan here used to be quite the party animal." He referred to her suddenly, conspiratorial, like she was in this with him in the first place.

Jamie thought of him as a peacock, the way he enjoyed having an audience and performing like the world was his stage, and she observed all this as she peeked up from behind the back of the sofa. It was a shield of sorts, to hide her bare skin and keep her at a distance from the predators of the room.

"I haven't been that way in a very long time." The boy protested weakly.

"Well, that's the vampire I can make a deal with. That is the kind of talent that I can use when I- when _we-_ " He spared Jamie a glance, "leave this town."

That inclusive plural was a lifeline, and she knew it. He meant to keep her with him, and all thoughts of escaping were banished then.

"Katerina, come here." Nik held his hand out with a flourish, and the reluctant girl followed.

Then, Nik showed them all what the Original Hybrid could really do.

Jamie felt a sharp stabbing sensation in the back of her head as he bit down on the girl- Katerina's arm.

* * *

William Gilbert was a drunkard, he always had been- No. There was a time, a long, long time ago, when he had been sober.

Things had a funny way of happening when you hit your lowest point, and he was at the scrape of the barrell, he knew that. It didn't help that Jenna had died, he had always been fond of her, he remembered her when she was only little, back when Grayson had started going steady with Miranda. And John. He had lost another brother, another family member. That hurt, it hurt him more than he was fully capable of registering, which was the whole point of drinking his days away in the first place.

So, Billy had a lot of reasons to drink. Dead brothers, friends, nieces- No. That had been the tipping point, hadn't it? The grand reveal, the moment they had all been waiting for.

Grayson had forbidden it, he'd put his foot down like older brothers tended to do, and naturally John followed suit. It had been John's idea in the first place, he was cowardly and stubborn like that, and Billy had never really had a say when it came to family matters. Not really. He was the black sheep Gilbert, and it had taken sixteen years to uncover the truth.

See, the truth was that William Gilbert didn't have a family. He didn't have a wife and kids and a little house on the prairie, that was all Grayson. What he did have, though, was a niece, a niece that just happened to be his biological daughter.

He couldn't remember how Elena found out, just that she did, just that John had caved in and told her. He could, however, remember her face as clear as day as she stared at him. The look on her face was damning, and he knew what she was thinking, how could this drunken piece of shit bare children? Well, he'd had a few girls in his time, pretty ones with nice laughs, and even though he hadn't meant to knock her up he found himself not all too bothered by it. He had himself a swell girl and a baby on the way, and William Gilbert had even went as far as to ask for her hand in marriage, to make a proper woman out of her, because it was proper. It might just have been the best thing he'd ever done in his life.

And then… Well, everything went tits up, like it so often did.

She died. It might of broke his heart, he couldn't really remember, he'd gone on a week long bender and all he could say was her name. He had been a sad drunk, until he wasn't, and then he got angry.

He had been arrested.

Grayson and Miranda with their recently adopted baby, all under wraps of course, had been more than welcome to take one Tinkerbell Jamie Gilbert in as their own. While her drunkard Father lay rotting in a cell where he belonged.

The real kicker was that he had sobered up, and he had done it for that little baby girl that looked so much like him. He'd done it for her, because she was the only one he'd do it for, and Grayson took one look at him and turned him away.

William Gilbert had never been fully sober since, not really. Even without the drink he was still numb somehow. It was a natural chemical being released in his brain that prevented him from feeling the pain and the loss that revered through his being for all those years. It was a piss poor substitute for whiskey, he'd tell you that much if he could.

Elena didn't have a twin, she didn't have parents or a biological pair or a real brother. Billy understood that better than anyone, just ask the bottles he was so deep in.

* * *

He looked cold. Jamie was staring at the dead body of a man she barely knew, and it was wrong. She was covered up in his jacket, she could smell his cologne and the softness of soap, and he was laying on the floor like a carpet with a dagger sticking out of his chest.

Tentatively, so as to avoid calling attention to herself, she approached him.

Secretly she was interested, she couldn't remember if she'd ever seen a dead body before but she knew that they didn't look like this. His skin was a glacier grey, pale with grief, and veins spiderwebbed across, stark and white against the otherwise smooth surface. His eyes were still open, she wondered if Nik would fix it or if Elijah's dead gaze was cursed to see everything while unseeing. It was a strange feeling that arose then, because she began to wonder as to the way a vampire's body functioned, and something in her mind was screaming at her to shut up, to not think about that sort of thing- She didn't know why, she just knew it scared her.

Her clinical gaze searched him, but some kind of emotion kicked in. She'd return his jacket to him, for the kindness he had paid her in giving it in the first place. It was some strange, misplaced sense of kindness that ignited in her, a matter of honor and debt she felt the need to fulfill for her own selfish reasons. Those very same reasons evaded her mind, but she knew it was something she had to do.

Jamie thought of Enzo, locked away deep in her shell's subconscious, relentless in her memory and the past. Consciously, she went about doing the task, and in her own way it was some morbid kind of memorial for her long lost vampire friend on the operators table.

" _Jay!"_ Nik's voice rang out sharply, a warning.

And yet still, she slipped out of the jacket, moving his body so she could place it back where it belonged.

Feeling Nik's curious gaze her eyes fluttered to meet it, and she spoke a few words softly in explanation. "He was kind to me, the jacket belongs with him."

"Come away from him, you can sit next to me. We should talk while Stefan's working up an appetite."

Stefan, that was the boy's name. He didn't look that old, not really, but age was lost on her, she didn't even know her own.

She moved away from the body with her naked legs and Nik's shirt covering her torso, feeling the cold seep in without Elijah's jacket to hold the warmth.

"You'll stay with me, won't you Jay? You'll help me find the wolves so that there's more of me." Nik's smile was cocksure, because the girl in the woods owed him a blood debt.

She knew then, that this monster, this horrible creature with the golden hair and blue eyes like a summer's sky, was trying to manipulate her. This was her life now, even though she had no memory of before, and she decided that she'd accept it, despite his obvious maneuver and the sheer audacity of his expectancy. Jamie had nothing left to lose, nothing to lose in the first place, and she knew she could become something more; she could make herself needed, could make Nik covet her comradery and input rather than demand it. He was a lonely being, lowly and wrong, and so was she.

"Of course, Nik." She spoke monotonously, "I want to help you."

Jamie felt a strange lapse of whims, and something struck her then, hard and heavy. She thought that maybe she didn't want to remember anymore, that she had forgotten it all for a reason, and this thought came along as the strange feeling she got from staring at Elijah refused to give way to anything else. Looking at Nik, the creature that had carried her and clothed her, she thought that maybe this was a new lease of life, that she could make something of herself by his side.

Perhaps, aiding a hybrid, a creature on the top of the food chain, would be gratifying. And perhaps she would benefit from helping him, because creatures of his nature never forget.

He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

* * *

Johnny Marx was not looking for some dumb mutt.

Old ladies peered from behind the polished windows of the shops at the blonde young man with an unimpressed look always on his face, the way his eyes looked dead ahead and the determined set of his mouth. He scared them, truthfully, but also excited them.

He'd fed the bastarding thing, gave him some water and brought him for a little ride, and then when the stupid hound ran off on him he was just fine with it. Of course he wasn't wandering around town trying to spot a tri-coloured mongrel with mismatched eyes. That was absurd.

Kids quickly gathered their chalk and jump ropes and what have you, abandoning the notion of hopscotch or double dutch in favor of going home. You didn't stand on the same sidewalk as Johnny Marx, not unless you wanted a split mouth. He was the meanest bastard Mystic Falls had ever seen, a bully like no other.

The dog had sat up next to him in the truck, and it wasn't Johnny's fault that it was so god damned hot in Virginia, so if Roscoe happened to enjoy sticking his head out the window and letting his tongue dangle then it wasn't anything to do with Johnny, it was just hot, okay? He didn't control the fucking weather, it was out of his hands.

A bark sounded suddenly, and Johnny whirled round, at the ready.

One of the kids trying to rush home nearly shit himself, thinking Johnny was staring right at him and not looking for his dead ex-girlfriend's dog.

 _Roscoe, you sumabitch, c'mere,_ he thought, and he thought that on the way him he might go buy a collar and a lead. Maybe a dog tag with the name engraved and a home address, he wasn't sure it his old telephone was still up and running but he would check it when he got back and if it didn't then he could always get a new one-

No, Johnny Marx wasn't chasing a dog, what a joke. He wouldn't dream of it.

* * *

Roscoe ran.

Dog's can sense things, and it was simple. He was aware that something was happening, could feel the energy and the power rush through the air, it was practically bursting at the seams with a force that called to him. He didn't think of THE MAN or THE BOY from earlier at all, he was focussed entirely on one task; and that was to find the source of whatever it was that was going on. It didn't much matter to him where he ended up or what was calling to him, dogs didn't care about stuff like that, they just… act.

He could feel a burst of warmth and affection in his chest, and he was excited beyond relief. Panting, happily, he bounded down the streets of Mystic Falls precariously, too fast to catch. There was no slowing him down, not even with the cars that he perceived differently from mankind or the familiarity of a house or a bar. None of that mattered to Roscoe.

It was only when he caught her scent that he slowed down, and that was to turn the corner in a sloppy sharp turn. THE GIRL! Roscoe's mind wailed, and never before had the lively dog felt so much at once. THE GIRL is back! THE GIRL is here!

He was a tri colored dog with mismatched eyes and a wagging tail, and he was homebound.

He caught sight of her crossing the street, and he yipped and barked and yelped in pure ecstasy.

Dog's didn't hold grudges, they didn't have abandonment issues or a pessimistic outlook; Roscoe just knew that he loved THE GIRL, and that THE GIRL loved him, too. And it had always only been a matter of time in his mind, until THE GIRL returned and played with him again. Until she smiled at him the way only she could and called his name.

He'd been waiting near enough a year in human time, and never had he doubted her.

Roscoe loved Jamie Gilbert, HIS GIRL, with all his heart, the way only a dog could.

Jamie had been crossing the street when she heard a sharp bark, followed by breathless yapping and the thundering of paws against cement. She turned around, and saw a dog heading towards her at full speed.

"Whoa, wa-Oof!"

"WOOF, WOOF!"

* * *

 _ **(AN: Soooo… Any ideas why Jaime is getting snippets of Nik's thoughts?**_

 _ **I realise Jaime is acting strangely, but most people with memory issues and trauma aren't 100% - especially right away. She's literally only been awake for a matter of hours, so far. What made Jaime act the way she did wasn't simply personality, it wasn't a means of nature but rather nurture, and she can't remember a thing in terms of what made her HER in the first place. It's fun to play around with.**_

 _ **Also, I just love the image of some badass dude trying desperately to find his dog while pretending not to. Johnny is just so much fun to write because I see him as a massive piece of shit, but a loveable piece of shit. I imagine he's like a blonde James Dean.**_

 _ **This whole thing is confusing, because Jaime's confused, and I like writing things in a disjointed way to reflect her thoughts.**_

 _ **I don't think I've ended a chapter with a happy ending in a long ass time, so I hope you enjoyed it.)**_


	19. Chapter Five, Summer Away

**Sink or Swim | Part II. Chapter Five, Summer Away**

Up, down, turn around  
Please don't let me hit the ground  
Tonight I think I'll walk alone  
I'll find my soul as I go home

 _Temptation, New Order_

* * *

Jamie was in a gas station in the middle of nowhere, and as the days passed by in a car ride blur and sleazy motel haze these station stores had become somewhat of a gentle reprieve. The aisles filled with overpriced snacks and bored cashiers at the counter were all the same, the people going about their monotonous lives passed her by without a second glance, and she liked to idle around outside the glass top windows with gaudy lettering and partially fulfilled promises painted on. She was trying on sunglasses from the spinning holder with a notebook sized mirror hanging on its last thread above the stall. There were circular lenses, thick squared frames, ombre fades and dainty metallic arms. She didn't much care what they were, she occupied herself with trying each pair on and gazing at her reflection, putting on her own show where she transformed with each pair, pretending she was someone else if only for a moment.

It made her feel more in control, when she pretended to be somebody else, because when she was wearing those glasses she felt more fulfilled and complete than she did in her own skin. She still didn't remember anything, though she could feel her brain pushing towards something every now and then, and those were the most frustrating times because the harder she pushed the more distance was put between herself and her memory.

The sleek women's pair made her pout and peer sultry over the top of the slim frame, grey staring back. Hippie circles were adorned with an airy smile and a flash of the peace sign that barely fit in the shoddy mirror. The thickest pair showcased a shy smile, and those were the ones she imagined would be taped back together right at the nose if they ever broke. Her hands danced against the rotary rack to its own beat, and she went through pair after pair until she finally fell upon a one lone accessory of plain black aviator-wannabes. When she put them on she didn't much feel like pretending to be anyone, it simply wouldn't work the way it did with the others, and when she stared at the demure girl in the mirror with the messy curls out of place she only saw herself. Gone were the attitude and the smiles, the peace sign and the faux shyness; with a pair like that there was no room for pretense. They were too plain, too real.

"Found anything you like?" Nik asked, and she could see his amused smile in the reflection.

He was leaning against the magazine stand with his arms crossed, appraising if not only a little mocking. It was a odd moment to observe, she supposed, but Nik loved to stumble upon the rare times she caught a glimpse of herself- or rather, who she really was.

"They look good on you, you should get them." He added, baby blue's merciless in its probing gaze.

In his head he saved that moment, fighting the urge to say 'hold it' and draw it right there on the spot. She had become somewhat of a muse in the brief time they had known one another, always doing something so perplexing or simply Jay-like that he felt the scratch to draw in his restless hands and the want, _need,_ of a pencil and paper. It was refreshing, and it held his attention far more often than he would like to admit.

Later on this might just become his favourite piece, with the grimy and blinding white of the walls and the shelves against the black of cheap sunglasses and her hair- the way the warm light hit her just right and brought a bronzen hue to her face. Only paints would do it justice, and there would be no muddying of the colours or haste in the process, he simply burned the very exact image he had in mind and savoured the way she looked in the late summer afternoon.

"We should go pay for the gas." Jamie murmured, and she slipped the glasses off and folded them again in one smooth motion. She kept them at hand though, with the mindless urge to buy them; she didn't have much in terms of possession, just a few clothes she had picked up and the companionship of two vampires and a canine of which she shared the confinement of cars and motels with.

They walked away from the counter with Jamie's sunglasses, a packet of Marlboro Red, four bottles of water, a chocolate bar and some dog treats- and a full tank of gas.

Stefan was outside, staring up at the sky at a standstill on the pavement with Roscoe wandering a little not far from him. He did that often, when they stopped for gas or came to a stop at the nighttime lodgings Nik prepared for them. It was at those times when he didn't talk to anyone, just looked off into the far distance, occupied with his thoughts. Jamie thought that they must have been rather sad, because he always looked miserable after. It also occurred to her that perhaps he was looking for something, searching for a hopeless cause, and that was even sadder in her opinion.

"C'mere, Coe." She called, and the way his ears perked up and he turned away from a stray bush made her smile a little.

He padded over to her, tongue sticking out and panting softly, and she poured some water into her cupped hands to give to him. The water was cool, the raspy tongue warm and leathery against her calloused palms, and the sensation tickled a bit.

Nik sometimes wondered how on earth she had convinced him to let her bring the dog along, it had a tag, a collar and an owner already, but that hadn't mattered to her. She didn't beg, she didn't plead or trade or promise him anything in return, and he didn't know what came over him when he complied so easily just because the creature seemed to make her happy.

"Jay, we're leaving." Stefan called dully, but he didn't move from his spot.

The sullen vampire never got into the car before her, he was always the first to leave the vehicle and the last to enter. She couldn't decide if she liked him, or if he resented her for being there in the first place because he had been dragged along against his will. It didn't matter much to her, she didn't feel much of anything towards him, and they didn't talk much, mostly because he never bothered to say anything.

One time though, while they were both hidden in the dark with the flickering light of the motel sign buzzing dully in the distance, he had looked away from whatever he was searching for when he stared at nothing. It was a familiar look, but she was used to the frustration of dejavu with no explanation that came to mind.

"You remind me of someone, Jay, I just can't put my finger on it." He had told her, thoughtful and quiet.

She hadn't said anything, and then Nik had met them with the keys.

It struck her then, as she and Roscoe got into the car, that Stefan Salvatore was a very strange boy indeed. The engine roared to life, and she stared at the reflection of the little gas station in the rear view mirror as it got smaller and smaller in the distance, every now and then catching a glimpse of the boy sitting in the back, until the building disappeared altogether.

The radio was on, and Roscoe squeezed his head through the gap between the driver and passenger seat to rub his wet snout against the bare skin of her arm. She hooked her arm around his neck, twisting it nimbly around the seats to give him a rub.

"I think we're getting closer on a lead." Nik was saying, glancing at her through the mirror with an easy going smile. "We'll find the next guy, Richard Hayworth, in the next few days."

They'd spent the entirety of the summer so far searching for werewolves and following leads, travelling in a spiderweb of fact and hints that led them down barren roads and to empty gas stations. All motels looked the same, with it's plain white bed sheets that held the faint smell of cheap detergent and thin curtains with equally horrid floral patterns adorned in the offset print. She didn't sleep much, and as the familiar sunshine began to leak into the room from the crack of said curtains she felt a familiarity set in that was almost homely. A routine had been established, with Nik and Stefan and Roscoe, and it was a God send, the only thing keeping her from tumbling over the edge. Her thread of sanity, suspended between loss and what she knew.

Jamie didn't understand the meaning of permanence, she had no basis of it or some kind of example to apply. It felt like freedom, but it was a feeble attempt at liberation at best, and she didn't feel any better for it.

* * *

Kai had always been a complicated person, and he wasn't quite used to missing people. He missed _things,_ mostly, but he had mostly everything he needed right there. His music and his trusty walkman, to name one.

In a strange way, he missed Jamie, not for her magic or the way she made him feel- though those were definitely contributing factors- but for the little things. He sat alone in his old home, where the first person outside of the family to have seen it was Jamie. That thought was very prominent to him as he beat his fists against the wooden cabinet in his room, screaming.

He missed the way she laughed, the feel of her skin against his and her touch, the way she danced on the table while singing into her bottle. The scraping of his knuckles against wood and the force of throwing himself into each hit was a piss poor substitute for the feel of her in the room with him.

The stupid artifacts they had collected, together, glared at him from his bedside table, and despite his rage he didn't have the heart to touch them- they were the things she had touched last, after all. He missed her smart alec answers, the ideas and facts that he could never have come up with by himself, the way her eyes danced in the too bright light and the little glimpse of teeth you'd get when she smiled genuinely. Watching her sit in the armchair while she was drawing or reading, her head bobbing and nodding along to beats and riffs mindlessly.

Knuckles bled over pale skin, slick and thick.

* * *

The streetlights spotted through the parking lot buzzed and crackled to life, giving off a light that would never hope to conceal the stars that began to peak through the night sky. It was just the pair of them, like the night he had said she reminded him of someone. Nik had left to take a call and to book the rooms, he'd compel the mildly pretty girl or the aging and balding man at the front desk to let them take Roscoe inside.

Stefan leaned heavily against the passenger side of the car. In many ways he was the passenger, like that Iggy Pop song she liked to listen to. He was a traveller by back seat only, never in control or in charge of his own fate, of any destination in mind or what he said or did- Stefan Salvatore, the solemn vampire with the melancholy stare, was a passenger to life, and there was nothing there but discontent.

As steady footsteps sounded, purposeful in their rhythm and not entirely natural like a humans would be, Jamie raised her head from where it lay on the hood of the car, Roscoe idling at her feet.

She liked to lay on the hood and feel the coolness of metal and the way the stars were light in the dark night. Her hair would pool around the crown of her head like a halo, falling into place when she sat up a little and falling into her face, and nimble hands played with the fabric of her shirt and sprawled against the car. Clenching

"I got another call back from an associate of mine, there's no sign of you on the missing registry." Nik informed her, snapping the cell phone shut and holding their room keys hostage. He was making somewhat of a point, by holding them while he talked, that he was their uncontended leader and that they were here until he said so.

Jamie stared at him absently with hooded eyes, offering an apathetic murmur of " _Pity."_ that she knew they'd both pick up on.

"I'm going to turn in, and you two should too. We have a busy day tomorrow." He carried on, always purposeful from the way he walked and held himself to his voice and command. With that he threw the keys Stefan's way, and he caught them with a _clink._ "I compelled the staff to turn a blind eye to the dog. Goodnight."

He always called ole Coe by the moniker of 'the dog'. Jamie thought it stemmed from the fact that it was the only piece in their strange lives that he had no active control over. Of course, it had been his decision to let her bring the dog in the first place, but in an odd way it hadn't been his choice at all. Something about that night led her to believe that there had been no sure way of getting her to leave Roscoe behind, she felt something when she looked at him, something so strong and overwhelming that it knocked her sick, and she liked it.

Still watching, she saw Nik's figure in the distance, and she continued to watch as he found his room.

It was all quiet then, at the western front of the parking lot with the wind blowing in from the east, but she couldn't find it in her to move. Through the silence that rang in the air and the peculiarity of companionship she found herself waiting for something.

"Doesn't it bother you at all?" Stefan spoke up all of a sudden.

He was looking at her, still, with no pretense anymore. It wasn't often that Stefan's actions seemed like his own, that he did or said something to satisfy his own curiosity at the sight of a strange girl that seemed so close to Nik. She sighed, skin brushing against the cool surface as she sat up a little, brand new shades perched on her head and ruffling her curls.

"The thought of nobody noticing or caring enough to report me missing or the notion that I'm completely and utterly alone in the world?" Jamie pondered, almost mockingly- _almost._

He toyed with the keys, still with his head down, mulling her words over. "Both."

She heaved a sigh, shifting on the hood to get comfy, feeling Roscoe brush up against her legs. "Not at all. I don't remember my life before, it could have been a steaming heap of shit for all I know. The way I see it is I should get busy living before I'm busy dying."

"But don't you want to know what happened to you? Where you come from and the people you care about?"

"No." She informed him monotonously, staring ahead. "It seems like a lot of hard work, to care about people and contemplate impending morality and mortality. I like my life right now, it's simple."

"You like travelling around the states with two vampires on a werewolf hunt?" He derided, full of disbelief and judgement.

"I like travelling, and I like finding new things. The hunting is just part of the deal."

With her piece aired, an ultimatum of sorts, Jamie hopped off the car. She had a blank wall to stare at for hours on end, and it'd be a shame if she missed her appointment. It was her own version of routine.

Stefan watched her and the dog leave, he watched her a lot when she wasn't looking, and nobody seemed to notice. He hated the dog, Roscoe who followed Jay around like a puppy once more. It wasn't so much the dog, he amended, as what he represented.

The animal blood that staved off the cravings, the Gilbert children and everything they'd lost… Home. Roscoe represented home, and what he'd had to leave behind to save.

Elena didn't have much of a bond with the mutt, he supposed, they managed to coexist at ease but didn't have any interaction that came to mind, but the sentiment was there all the same. Jeremy loved him, would take him for walks and throw balls and stick for him to fetch, would play Xbox with the dog idling at his lap. Even Damon liked Roscoe, would purposefully buy treats to give him when no one else was looking, though Stefan had caught him doing it a few times over.

So maybe he didn't hate the dog, but it frustrated him all the same. Like the way he couldn't put his finger on why Jay looked so familiar...

* * *

She was in some cheap motel far away from Virginia, where she supposed she began the first foot of her journey; the beginning marked by meeting Nik, the prologue being the memories she couldn't seem to recall or force into existence by sheer will. The window was open, and she just sat at the bedside table looking lost and vague and not really there in the shuttered light. She could hear the traffic off the highway, deafening and foreign, and the only comfort she had was the familiarity of loneliness that hung in the air. It was all she had left from her old life, and she only knew that much- nothing more.

Roscoe- that was the name on the dog's collar- whined. Her hands threaded through his fur.

The noise was strange to her ears, and she didn't think she'd ever adjust fully, because once she seemed to have gotten used to something she'd wake up again at six in the morning like she always did and she'd be struck with that same old fear again. She hardly slept, waking up at odd intervals and breathing heavily, listening to all the noise and the busyness of the world. It seemed like the world never stopped to take a minute to breathe, it just kept on- and some part of her knew she'd been left behind, and she would have stayed that way if it weren't for Nik.

Some months passed, and Jamie didn't feel the pull of isolation anymore, the urge to lock herself away and ignore the people surrounding her. She'd learnt to enjoy the company, and she adapted to her new lease of life fairly at ease.

Funnily enough it was Roscoe that pulled her from the confinements of her mind, she couldn't help but to bathe him in attention like he deserved the world.

So she turned her head a little, and Nik was watching her warmly, and she gave him a lovely smile. Nik was in the now, and maybe the past didn't so much as matter anymore. So what was the point in living in it?

And yet she still stared up at the sun at certain times of the day, searching for something that wasn't there and not knowing what she was looking for to begin with. When something funny happened or a certain song would come on the radio she would turn around to tell it to someone that wasn't there. Music was a strange sensation for her, everything seemed so unfamiliar and then all of a sudden one would come on the radio and flare to life and she could feel her heartbeat racing and her hands danced across her knee, like she'd listened to it many a time before.

Sometimes in her dreams she'd have a boy call her Jamiebelle, and he looked sad and alone and she felt sick to her stomach at the thought of leaving him. Other times she dreamed of people that weren't there, with voices and emotions that swirled around her brain viciously, some stronger than others and all shrouded by the dark. It was those nights she felt most isolated, when she curled herself up in the middle of the bed that seemed far too big and she practically swam in the soft sheets as she gripped on to the loose fabric that pooled around her in floods for dear life. She didn't cry, not then, because she didn't have it left in her to cry for things long forgotten- but she folded in on herself, feeling hollow and tired and just a shell of herself. A shell of whoever she was or was supposed to be.

Nik would find her in the morning looking like damaged goods, still sitting in the middle of the bed and out peering at him with those saddened storm-filled eyes. She'd offer a tragic smile, the kind that she did best, and she'd say 'good morning' even though she hadn't understood the meaning of a good morning for as long and he'd known her. And then she'd step out of bed, timid like- and it didn't so much as suit her as it did hang over her with resignation- and he wouldn't see her again until she left the bathroom. Those small moments where he saw her like that were personal, just a glimpse into the mind of a girl he'd picked up at the side of the road, and then she'd reappear all bright eyed and ready to take on the world once more. Sometimes he'd catch her in the way she moved like someone else was there, or how something came across as those certain songs came on the radio, and the obscure faces that filled their sketchbook that were too defined and yet had no real definition all at once. In a way, Jay was just like him.

She was wary of Stefan, had been from the moment they'd met, but it wasn't his actions that defined him in her eyes, because she wouldn't so much as bat an eyelid when it came to his murderous escapades, it was just the way he presented himself. Nik surmised that he had been a lot more fun in the 20s, but then again he did thrive off the control he had over his ripper, and how Jay in all her human glory preferred him over Stefan. When he caught himself having these thoughts he brushed them aside hastily, because as Kol was so fond of saying-

In truth, Jamie was wary of his motives. He had an incentive, much different to Nik's, and it was entirely selfless and selfish at the same time, and she couldn't relate. While she didn't warm up to him, she did find herself liking him in his righteous defiance and solemn looks. He was a passive force, but a force all the same, and he was so very different from Nik and his obsession with control.

Jamie was resolute, for all the unsurity that shrouded her she was steadfast in herself. She told everyone, Nik and Stefan, that she didn't remember anything- it was a lie.

She remembered the low buzz of electricity and a shock of light through the crack of the door, muffled screams of pain and dull moaning, a smile and a promise of friendship. A girl's voice, sweet and caring and doe eyes. The smell of spilt wine, sticky to the touch, and the weight of a woman and a home solid against her body. A boy that smiled at her and sang softly to the music, voice only slightly heard. A grown man and the clang of cutlery in the early morning light of the kitchen, an oath of want and a sense of place. School, grades, a young boy with a bruise against his cheek and his slip of a window sill she liked to balance on with sturdy feet. Baseball bats, a battered navy cap, a dog brushing against her legs. Blue, the cool metal of a car's skeleton, oblivion.

They all came about at strange intervals, no set time for her to point a finger at, nothing concrete to tell her what life had meant before THE INCIDENT.

She could sometimes remember it, drowning, a girl begging her, a woman passed out in the front seat and the man beating his limbs against the glass of a window.

The cheeky smile of a boy she had a semblance of love for, a noose for a necklace. Loneliness.


	20. Chapter Six, Blue eyed Cocaine

**Chapter Six. Blue eyed Cocaine**

We chased our pleasures here  
Dug our treasures there  
But can't you still recall  
The time we cried

 _Break on through, The Doors_

* * *

The tiled walls of the bathroom seemed to loom and grow long like shadows on a sunny day. It would have reminded her of cocaine trysts if she could remember it, of obscure cafe's and a boy who loved her when no one else would. Instead she gripped at the countertop, at the sink basin and the tentative glare of the glass under an overbearing light.

Jamie frowned at the girl in the mirror, the one with a face she vaguely recognised as her own but not with ownership nor acknowledgement. This girl seemed different to her, a pretty and broken imposter. There were no bruises or smudged blood or little marks she had grown to love fondly, she didn't feel like herself without it.

The girl- certainly not herself, not Jamie- couldn't seem to hold the straps of her bralette up with her bare shoulders. She wasn't too skinny, not unhealthily so, but the bone was defined and her straps had been adjusted poorly. It was a distressed denim look, an off-colour black, one that Nik had bought her, like the rest of her clothes, somewhere along the line. There were no ornaments, she wore her neck bare in its long and slender glory and the harsh black lines of a marker slashed across her bony wrists- Nik held a certain fascination for watching her draw on herself, the painfully blank canvas that she was.

Most people wore their memories on their skin, on the sleeves of gowns woven with brain matter and pictures, she had found out that summer, the girl in the mirror- Jay- wore ink instead. It was a beggar's belief, a poor imitation of permanence despite how permanent the markers claimed to be, but it made her feel something and that's what counted.

She was in a dismal mood, she'd spent the better half of her day reading psychology and medical books, with Stefan nodding to her every once in a while with polite interest. The books had been stolen from libraries and the odd book store, acquired from different states and never returned or accounted for- she wondered if those books would be her first account of felonies, or if she had a record to her name.

If someone had asked she could easily recall and recite numerous passages on brain structures and the hippocampus and plasticity along with the debate on diencephalon and its relation to episodic memory and thus the implications surrounding photographic memory. She had tiredly surmised that the simplest term for what she was experiencing was a retrograde amnesia of sorts, but without her memory intact she couldn't pinpoint the main cause or if there was an underlying issue that kept her from remembering. Reading Ribot's Law and putting the vague pieces of knowledge on the brain as an organ and its functions had been a repetitive chore.

She assumed the trauma that caused the amnesia was related to the accident, though it hurt her head to try figure out the exact details. Faces, places, dates and names all flashed through her mind on interlude, but trying to connect the dots was as effective as cutting of a limb. Perhaps it would all come back to her in due time, she had already started an episode of recall, after all, and it seemed all she had to her name was time. Still, it was frustrating, and trying to read medical journals was annoying when she came to the realisation that she already _knew_ the content.

The real girl tilted her head back against the tiles of yet another motel's bathroom, the foreign girl copied with her demure figure and brazen eyes. A contradiction of a person. If only she could see what was in that head, she thought wildly, eyes frantic in their discreet scrutiny of the mirror.

Only half dressed, stranded in the fluorescent bathroom of a room with no real owner and wallowing in the ceaselessness of time, Jamie made the decision to retreat to the bar next door. The room was a conjoined one, one of three doors leading to Nik and Stefan's empty twin one, they'd gone for a dinner date and had the good mind to take Roscoe with them. Once upon a time the white tiles of a strange bathroom meant more, it meant lines of coke and a blue eyed boy's bed; the girl in the mirror wanted something like that now more than ever. Just something (someone) to help her feel just that little bit more sane.

Those who knew Jamie (ghosts) might not have recognised her. Her hair had grown to her shoulders, dark locks brushing against the skin and blowing to cover the stranger-she-had-become's face. She might have felt more herself without it, back when Jamie was there she had worn it meticulously cropped with a hat, and she could no longer remember the feeling of a shaved head or Rita Richardson's cancer.

The stranger (Jay) threw over a button down shirt, one that was probably Nik's, leaving it open and gaping at the front, unashamed and careless in the manner of which her bra straps fell across her shoulders and converged loosely at her arms. It was hot, and she was blissfully aware and unaware of her body in the best ways.

Leaving a note, loopy handwriting sprawling across the motel pad, for the boys, she snagged her keys from the table.

She looked good, and of course she did; she was young, still, with smooth flesh and an athletic build. No makeup, wild hair and sultry grey eyes with a sex laden voice to match. It had come in handy, to be sure, she wasn't so small as to pass for innocent but she had a wit about her that came across earnest and likened over easy. Her place, among a vampire, a hybrid and a dog with a coat to die for, was bait; she soothed and talked and gave the prettiest and saddest smiles anyone had ever seen. And then, only at the very last minute, her timing impeccable and her mask unwavering, she'd bite.

It wasn't like Nik's charm or Stefan's solemn brutality, she didn't rip in with her teeth or cold disposition, Jamie's expertise was love bites.

It was easy to lose oneself at night, it felt strange- even the most familiar of places were decisively unfamiliar in the dark, and Jamie was no local, now more so than ever before. She shuffled with the lock on the door, her shroud half lit by the warm red hue of a vacant neon sign and the streetlamps harsh glare. The window adorned sign flickered out before sizzling to life with a newfound fierceness, spluttering and on its last legs but burning bright, still.

The bar wasn't empty, far from it, but it wasn't as busy as some of them that summer had been. She'd become an expert of sorts on motel bars, a connoisseur, but this place seemed more family friendly than seedy.

She zeroed in on a man who hadn't touched his drink, a familiar look in his eyes as he toyed with his glass mindlessly and the whindling smile he wore as he made his table laugh. He was on another poison altogether, she knew, and that would be her score.

* * *

Like Father like Daughter, Billy was drinking, too. It seemed like that was all he was doing as of late.

Jeremy had stumbled upon him, had mistook him for a bum, and bumming around was apparently his sole occupation. He'd become a local of the bar & grill, where it seemed the only place to get a stiff drink around the town, and he'd been palling around a little with Alaric.

"They took 'em," he'd been telling anyone that was willing to listen, "they took my girl and they took the damned dog, too!"

Jeremy liked Billy, he liked his stories and the way his grey eyes slinked in the light- like Jamie's. It scared him when he took a bad term, when his Uncle's smart words turned to darker stuff. It was like an insight into his mind, into Jamie's mind, where home truths lay just beyond the surface; unruly and bubbling up all at once only to be forgotten in the morning.

He learnt about why his Uncle had fallen out with his Dad in the first place, stuff about drinking and drugs and women that would make him blush. Billy treated him like a man, told him the thing's he'd been up to at his age- none of them good, all of them too reminiscent to Jamie's life- and just what Grayson had thought about it.

It took a while, but Jeremy had gotten him back to the house, he wasn't entirely sure where Billy was staying when he wasn't in the spare room nowadays. 'Spare' wasn't exactly an apt description, because it had been where his Parents had slept and where Jenna had slept, too.

He was passed out now, or so the kid had thought.

"Nineteen ninety two." Billy moaned, head lulling loosely like it wasn't attached to his body at all.

Jeremy didn't know what that meant, but Billy wasn't talking to him in the first place. He wasn't in the room, truth be told, his nephew wasn't so much as a dot on the radar. He wasn't seeing the room, he was stuck in his own head; his own living nightmare.

Portland, Oregon. May, 1992.

" _The hell we doin' here, babe?" Billy complained idly, half eyeing the road while catching glimpses of her legs on his dashboard- Only two people on this earth would ever get away with that, but was it only coincidental that one was borne from another?_

 _He was much younger in those days, and his Jamie would grow up to look just like him._

" _I told you." She grumbled back with a hefty sigh, "It'll only take a second, I promise."_

" _That's not an answer."_

* * *

There was a boy at the bar, with tawny fair curls and blue eyes. He wasn't having much luck at the table, but luck seemed to be all Jamie had on her side as she left the bathroom stall.

Yet another bathroom, and lemon burst in her sinuses. If someone from Mystic Falls had seen her they might have thought her a ghost, she looked every bit the young lost girl she had been way back when, and hadn't she been a year dead as it was?

The wooden panels were chipped, the engraved pattern worn and unevenly levelled over years of wear. Drinks slopped over the rim of glasses, beer mats soaked, the faux leather stools spewing stuffing from the gaping mouth of opened thread. The windows, warped by diamonds bent out of shape, were a tawdry stained glass, with a barrage of signs and slogans such as 'BEER: HELPING UGLY PEOPLE HAVE SEX SINCE 1962', and neon signs that kicked to life.

It was a copycat of every makeshift bar along the state lines.

Something about it seemed grander, now, with a neat line of cocaine up her nose and her problems well forgotten, courtesy of none other than Nik. He really did put too much forward, with the cash and his notability to take on strays. It seemed like he wouldn't deny her anything, and she didn't ask for much.

The wetness of the bar gleamed and winked in the hazy light, the smokiness of the room was more like a fog machine than a dusty haze of age and dirt. She swung around the billiards table, promising herself a game and smiling at the colourful burst of the balls and the way they smacked like thunder as the players broke. It sure was nice to see snow in the summer, even better to breathe and see it in the boiling dregs of a filthy overflown bathroom.

That tall boy at the bar, though, his hair had a life of its own, it seemed to never stay still as it swirled in its whirlpool curls around the crown of his head. He might have been 6"2, if not taller still. She could only see the profile of his face, his blue eyes and broad back facing her, and she liked the way his muscles were visible as they clenched when he leaned forward only to reel back again.

She wasn't thinking, she didn't _need_ to think now that she'd had her first snowfall. She just walked up behind him and rocked forward on the heels of her shoes, having to tip on the front soles to reach all the way. He sure was tall, and a smile went about striking her features like lightning all of a sudden.

"You don't look old enough to be served." She told him in a hushed voice, knowing and mocking. The kind of voice that enticed Nik's prey for a fee, and it struck her that she'd done and seen horrible things that summer, that she was just as much a monster as the creatures she kept in company.

With a start he wheeled around, eyes wide and a guilty pink spreading in his cheeks. "W-what?"

He was attractive, with a sharp jaw and cheekbones, pink lips stark against pale english skin. Those blue orbs seemed electric then, with the bar lights hanging overhead like a noose, and perhaps she had fallen into another rope necklace when she looked at him.

She fell back into step, surefooted, with amusement clouding two way mirror eyes. He was pretty, but she had seen plenty of pretty boys that summer, and she had yet to lose.

"How old are you, anyway?" He went on, getting his bearings now that he was looking at her face to face, a new kind of unease filling him as he stood attention to a pretty girls discretion, and he hazarded a guess. "Eighteen, maybe- at most, even?"

He was wondering where she'd come from, because he sure as hell would have noticed her when he walked in. The people at motel's were older, usually, married with kids in tow or hiding away with a sordid deed to be done. It seemed like she came from nowhere all of a sudden, and he hadn't expected to talk to anyone, or to meet someone in a place like this. It occurred to him, sudden like, that nowhere was an apt description of the girl standing in front of him. Everyone had someplace to go and something to join in with, but he knew somehow that she didn't see the need; that no place was where a pretty girl like her belonged to.

"On a scale of one to ten, maybe." She said offhandedly, "Close, but no cigar."

It might have bummed her out, because she had no clue how old she really was- when her birthday was or the place she was born. But none of that mattered, then, because she'd crack the code eventually, and all she had was time.

Sly, she slid gracefully to the side so as to lean heavily on the bar. He watched her, partly because he couldn't seem to look away, not even for a minute. It never occured to him to step back, not when her bare skin brushed against the denim of his jeans, or how her arm was pressed against his own as she flagged down drinks with a casual expertise.

"Two of whatever he's having." Jamie waved a hand in his direction, knowing that he was staring still and that she might end the night with a blue eyed boy after all. God bless compulsion and the failsafe of a fake I.D, just standard practice when one travelled with vampires she supposed.

The bartender, 'James' by the looks of the nametag, cleared his throat.

"Oh, right!" He jumped, "I'll, uh, can I get a Budweiser…"

This James, James the bartender, shot him a knowing look as he sorted their bottles from the refrigerator.

She slapped some bills on the counter, "It's on me. An apology of sorts, I didn't mean to scare you."

Jamie had an earnest kind of smile, grey eyes taking on a softer quality as she looked up at him. With her drink in hand, one she wasn't sure she'd get around to having in the first place, she turned on her heels and took leave.

He wanted to say he hadn't been scared, despite the fact that she'd seen him jump in the first place, but it didn't seem so important when he realised she was walking away. No, there were far more pressing matters when he watched her hips sway as she took another step away from him, alright. "Wait! What's your name?"

He was right behind her, in a hurry, and he covered a lot of ground in one stride.

"Jay, whatsittoya?"

"Well, it's rude not to know the name of a pretty girl that bought me a drink. I'm Kaleb." He mustered up a weak smile, waiting for her reaction, and when she threw him a grin over her shoulder his own smile strengthened. It was a good one, too, a cheeky kind of smile from a nice boy that looked like it came from an american girl's wet dream.

What was it with americans and their fascination with the british accent, besides?

"Mhm," she hummed knowingly, "do you want to come join me, then? It's no fun to drink alone, and I'm not too shabby at billiards, neither."

* * *

"Jay would have had that one, hook line and sinker." Nik said, and it almost sounded like he was whining that his little human friend hadn't come along.

Stefan raised an eyebrow at him, shoving the burly biker to the wall like a discarded toy. "Oh, I'm sorry, is it not enough that you dragged me along- you need your little _pet,_ too?"

If he was trying to get a rise out him, or to have an excuse to end the night early, it wasn't working.

"Don't be coy, you're enjoying this, and you know you are. Why bother lying?" The hybrid offered a cocksure smile, patting the cheek of the scantily clad girl at hand twice before letting her drop. "Besides, Jay's plenty fun, at least she doesn't act so bloody well miserable all the time. Tell me, Stefan, do you ever tire of frowning all the time? Seems like work, to me."

Roscoe came amicably towards the pair, returning from wherever he had disappeard to, and it was a good thing- Nik shuddered to think of what Jay would do if the mutt didn't come back to the motel with them, she had a soft spot for him.

The men left the alleyway, the bodies too, and returned to the street. It had been slim pickings, but they'd made do with what was up for offer, and now Stefan was more than ready to return to his room. It didn't matter that he was sharing said room with Klaus, he knew by now that the hybrid would be next door for the better half of the night with Jay.

It confused him just as much as it worried him, the way the teenage girl reacted to Klaus and how the original seemed to have a tentative friendship with her. They got on far better than they should, and it was disturbing how willing she'd been to trick her own kind into being their next meal- to spend her days tracking down werewolves and being in Klaus' disposal, with no sign of wanting to give up.

Sometimes, though, when he found himself watching her, he'd see something stewing under the surface. There was something strange, if not familiar, about Jay. The way she fell into her role at ease, how she went above and beyond and managed to impress 'Nik'- how the original hybrid had somehow found himself regarding her as a fellow being rather than a prize or a resource.

Something wasn't right about her, and Stefan felt almost frightened at the thought of finding out what it was.

Klaus was still talking, of course, as they walked at a leisurely pace with his dead girlfriend's dog at their heels. He liked talking, he liked to brag and demonstrate who was in charge, and it was safe to say that Stefan had learned to tune him out quickly.

Nik had been in a good mood, he'd gotten a call soon after leaving the motel- he had a lead. It was almost stupid how excited he was to tell Jay, but it was nice to have someone to share it with, someone who was there by choice (despite what Stefan liked to think or thought he knew). She'd ask for details, hashing out the inner workings of the planned operation, and she was almost relieved to have something to do. He'd take in her keenness to devise a plan and her strategic input with barely concealed awe.

Nobody had ever shown a real interest in helping him achieve his hybrid status. Witches did his bidding out of fear, his siblings had disappointed and betrayed him on more than one occasion, and their help had been nothing but polite loyalty. In his mind they had owed him as much and more, and now that he had someone on his side it was strange.

He remembered, one night in which they had simply talked, where he had been shocked to see the sunrise take over the dark sky and the stars. Unable to stop himself, he'd told her all about the curse that had been placed upon him, his Mother's indiscretion and his Father's rage. He'd explained Elijah and his siblings involvement, Katherine's crimes, Stefan's reluctance.

To his surprise she had eyed him with displeasure, but not for the atrocities of his act, proceeding to eagerly pick apart his plan and point out the evident shortcomings.

"A pretty girl whose family turned away from her because of a baby born out of wedlock." She had deadpanned, "How in the hell did you think it was going to end? She learned to survive, man. A pretty girl would have gained no roof over her head from any upstanding woman, they would have been married and a pretty young thing like her would have been like delivering a cake on a platter. She learned to manipulate the kindness of others, take advantage of men- Nik, you practically _fed_ her an escape from the palm of your hand!"

"What would you have had me do?" He complained, pleasantly surprised and a little offended.

" _Wait_." Jay had replied vehemently, "Bide your time, she would have had no inclination of what was happening until her blood was yours and the moon was high."

"It wasn't that simple." He muttered moodily, properly chastised.

"Life rarely is, but you're not alive, now, are you? You're undead. And she should be dead fullstop."

He'd be lying if he said he wasn't a little amused, lying more still if he said he hadn't been impressed. Her audacity alone was endearing, her expectant and exasperated manner in the face of a predator itself most certainly impressive.

"You're a smart little thing, aren't you?" He'd praised with a curious look, wondering idly where she'd been all his life.

"No more mistakes, my friend. We're going to undo this mess you've made, we're going to make you a fully effective hybrid."

If Jay had been by his side, he thought wildly, then perhaps he would have become a hybrid much earlier. It was such a terrifying thought, one that was forbidden and quickly filed away to the back of his mind, but he acknowledged that it was nothing more than the truth of the matter. That somewhere along the line she had become more than a tool or a mere confident- He regarded her as a friend. His only one.

So, when they returned to an empty motel room, he was slightly put out by her unexpected absence.

"She's not here." Stefan stated the obvious, watching Klaus standing in empty space.

"Really? And here I thought she was doing a bang up job of blending in." The original hybrid deadpanned, something else seeping into his voice.

Vulnerability, maybe.

"Jay doesn't need you, Klaus. It's only a matter of time before she finds someone, someone she'll stand with because it's her choice, not because they found her with no memory."

Stefan retreated to the bathroom, leaving him alone.

"Maybe." Nik agreed, inaudible even to a vampire, a wordless whisper. In his hand was a note ripped from the standard issue legal pad.

 _Gone out. Don't wait up. -Jay_

* * *

"I'm on a road trip with my brother and his friend." Jamie lied easily, settling a cheek against her hand. "We started in Virginia, and we're not going anywhere, really, just driving..."

 _Searching for werewolves and ripping people to shreds._ It was amusing, really, how different her life was to everyone else's. She thought, sobering a little as she took another drink, about which one of the boy's would be considered her brother- She was dark of hair, like Stefan, but Elijah had been plenty dark and he was still brother's with Nik. _And currently indisposed in a box,_ she reminded herself, definitely sobering up.

"I think I get it," Kaleb smiled, "you know what they say, nowhere is where the genius' go, after all."

She laughed, "who the hell are 'they', then? I ain't heard that one before."

"I think I got it from a movie or something." He admitted, an impish grin lighting up his face.

Maybe bathrooms still meant cocaine and a boy with blue eyes, after all.

* * *

 **(AN: Okay, but Kaleb got fuck all except to be Kol's shell. I really like the idea of Jamie just stumbling upon him in the middle of nowhere, because it's a fact that Esther targeted people that were alone to act as hosts, and in a way Jamie's alone, too- I think I feel a Kaleb backstory coming along, and I'm more than happy to write it. (Justice for Kaleb Westphall, please and thank you).**

 **Nik is so damn lonely it hurts, just a little PSA for you.)**


	21. Seven, It's alright, I'm only bleeding

**Chapter Seven, it's alright, I'm only bleeding**

Temptation's page flies out the door  
You follow, find yourself at war  
Watch waterfalls of pity roar  
You feel to moan but unlike before  
You discover that you'd just be  
One more person crying  
 _Bob Dylan, It's Alright, Ma, I'm only Bleeding_

* * *

Jamie shuffled back into her shorts, bralette straps hanging loosely off her sides, skin gone gold in the half light of a motel room that was not her own. Red lips, raw and bruised from kisses and the whispered words of a lover, parted softly with the want of a cigarette. Long, seemingly never ending legs elongated and tight over the bone as she stretched, arms outreached and hips jutting out.

He watched her, the covers pulled up to his bare stomach and congealing in waves around his waist. White linen over pale skin and a lean figure riddled with muscle. Blue eyes clouded over with lust and satisfaction, a childish delight warming his sunny smile and bedridden hair.

She thought he was plenty handsome, this strange boy she'd met at a bar outside the Indianapolis. The boy she'd spent the night with, an exchange of sweet words and a tryst under the bedsheets, whose skin burned against hers and hands that entangled and ensnared her own in knots.

"Don't look too pleased with yourself." She quipped, amused. "You couldn't even manage to order a drink at the bar, just last night. Or don't you remember?"

Kaleb's arm shot out, catching her by the waist and drawing her in close. "Says you. I bet I could of gotten a drink without your help- You didn't even let me try!"

"I took pity on you." She shrugged, half hooded eyes scanning his impressive chest lazily.

He snaked another arm around her, pulling her back onto the bed and settling his chin against the crook of her neck. They fit together like puzzle pieces, the complicated ones that depicted a youthful scene of beautiful people doing mundane things. "It must have worked, anyway, because you came along."

She liked the way his jaw jumped as he spoke and how his lips ghosted her cheek when he spoke, and she didn't bother moving away, sitting between his blanket clad legs only half dressed. The curtains were cracked open to let the open window air in, his body was like a natural furnace, and the light streamed in prison bar beams across the pair of them, stuck in their own domestic and hedonist playset. Neither of them had slept much, too caught up in each other and lazing about, taking in the pleasure of companionship and sex like the lonely creatures they were.

The world outside went on, unbeknownst to them, with birds chirping in the parking lot trees and the sun rising steadily as dawn broke and day set. Cars began to frequent once more, the guilty hid in their rooms behind their shame in the shade of shutters, families peeled out of their rooms in boisterous swarms as they worked to pick up all belongings. It was another day on the road, but time didn't seem to exist in the privacy of their room, with a double bed that seemed too big and too small all at once and grubby little hands needless in their touch. They explored their skin like the road maps, drawing lines and raising gooseflesh in its wake, swimming in sheets and easing themselves into the sweet nothings of words and pleasantries.

Still, motionless in his clutches, his hands toyed with loose curls that settled about the tops of her shoulders and dusted against his forehead. "When are you leaving?"

"I don't know. Soon, though. Today or tomorrow." She murmured, tilting her head a little further to the side as his teeth scraped against an especially tender spot in the hollow of her neck.

When she looked in the mirror, eyes fluttering and dusting against warm cheeks, she sought out the familiar curves and lines- and to her delight, bruises. _Love bites._

Most of the bruises faded, it was tough to face, her old life washed away with mended blood vessels and perfected skin. There was soon enough no evidence of her roots and where she came from, just perfected flesh. Jamie sometimes got into fights at those bars Nik took them to, to feel the familiar ache of broken skin and blood again. It wasn't always enough to curb her, and she liked the days where the sky turned a horrible shade of ugly bruises. She welcomed sunburn and cigarette burns, paper cuts and split skin- Nik looked concerned, Stefan understood.

Incidental bleeding made her alive, a strangers fist favoured over one night stands- except for Kaleb, only Kaleb. She knew Nik would peel her body from the sidewalk once more, that he'd sit on her bed and look at her ugly skin, she liked the bruises on her face the most. She wore them like jewelry, like marker lines on her hands and wrists. He spent many nights staring at her in her muddled state, eyes muddy with inebriation and airy, the only time they dulled.

Sobriety was tough, Nik kept them away from bars and liquor stores and back alley escapades, and Jamie had no more trysts with strange men and empty bottles. He ignored leads that led to bars, he did it for her, she was hindering the search through his own conscience. Every now and then she got her hands on something, she was too quick sometimes. Those little bottles you got at the Gas stations and hotel gift shops, a hooded man looking to sell while she went out for a cigarette break, she came to life as the opportunities arose, and Nik couldn't hold out much longer.

Last night had been somewhat of a breaking point.

Looking in the mirror, though, she thought that maybe love bites were better. With a pair of strong arms wrapped around her middle and threaded through her hair rather than fists and the fleeting ache of being struck. With Kaleb's good looks hidden in the crook of her neck and the soft words that escaped his lips in an oddly refreshing vulnerability, not threats of violence and the spew of vulgarity she had resigned herself to.

"I've gotta go, Kaleb."

He groaned, veering his head around, hair tickling her bare skin as he rolled off the side to her shoulder blades. Blue eyes on grey, smouldering and the faint sense of burning up.

"Do you really have to?"

"Yeah, yeah I do." She sighed, but despite her words she eased into his hold further.

His lips darted against her own in quick succession, gentle against her own, teasing. "Hopefully I'll be seeing you, Jay."

"Not if I see you first."

Maybe the families shot her disgruntled looks as she shuffled along the curb, her skin on show and Nik's shirt falling off her, but she didn't care. The light was sharp, like one of those overexposed polaroids that somehow took a crystal clear shot, distinctly a blinding white with a yellowish tinge every now and then.

Jamie returned to her own room, looking suitably disheveled and her own age for once.

The tension in the room was palpable, Nik sitting ramrod straight on the bed and Stefan looking smug. It felt overbearing, first thing in the morning, but she grinned as Roscoe bounded over with his tongue and tail wagging. Someone was happy to see her, at least, and she doubled over to greet him almost childishly.

"Nice of you to join us, sweetheart. I got a call last night." He greeted tersely. "We've got a lead in the next town over, a man named Richard Adelson."

She nodded, "Wolf, I assume? What's the plan?"

Nik visibly relaxed all of a sudden, eyes darting across her skin and taking in the way she was unharmed and unmarked- with the exception of what looked like hickeys, that is. It was stupid, how much he valued her well being. He didn't know why he'd been so quick to take up a bad mood, not when she seemed so ready to be involved and her eyes ate up the information with raw intelligence and pure _hunger_.

"He's a lone wolf, recently estranged with his pack. I want to know why." His voice softened, he leaned back in his seat as he took control, resting against the headboard and secretly pleased to have her input. "Stefan will take you to the bar he frequents, he's an avid daytime drinker- or so my informant would have me believe. I want you to work your magic, Stefan will make sure nothing goes awry. We'll be staying here for two more days, I need you to get answers tonight, I'll strike tomorrow evening."

Nik didn't dish out commands to her the same way he did with Stefan, it was a whole new dynamic between the pair of them when he addressed her. It was new territory for him, to be excited and eagerly forthcoming with information, but he'd been deprived of an audience to bask in his schemes for so long that he almost welcomed the reprieve. And what did he have to worry about, anyway? Stefan was under his thumb and Jay had no memory, as far as he was concerned the two of them had no choice but to comply.

Except, he sought out more than compliance in her, he knew. He wanted her opinion, her keen involvement and witty comments. She wasn't bound to him by familial ties or leverage hanging over her head with every turn of the corner, she was loyal by choice. Nik had never had anyone choose to be by his side before, not even his family stuck around.

Finn had been in a casket for nine centuries, now, and sometimes he forgot what his brother sounded like when he was left alone to his thoughts. And he'd had a lot of time to think about things like that over the centuries, he was always alone in the end.

A thousand years was a long time, and nothing seemed as clear as it used to in his mind anymore. Memories of boyhood glazed over, sometimes even entirely so, and landmarks of history muddied up by the insignificant. His life, for what felt like forever, had been centered around breaking the hybrid curse, and he could hardly believe it was done- had it really only taken a teenage girl's blood spilled at an alter?

Elijah had turned on him just like everyone else, and Rebekah had chosen his little Ripper, unbeknownst to the vampire in the room, over her own flesh and blood- something he had feared Jay might do when she failed to come back last night, the thought scaring him more than finding her hurt again. It was almost as if the people closest to him in this life had been hell bent on failing him at least once, taking it in turns to hurt him over and over again. But he'd won, in the end, like he always said he would. Except… the doubt was still there, and he wasn't sure if he'd felt the same in boyhood or not, but he couldn't remember it ever _not_ being there.

Wickedly, his brain conjured up the image of Kol.

His youngest brother, an inherited title in the light of Henrik's untimely death, had stood at his side when it suited him best. But he'd been an unruly thing, always going off on his own and returning quite suddenly, leaving a long winding trail of carnage in his path- and hadn't Nik applauded him for it on occasion? Joined in when he felt the urge, and that doubt he felt would swindle with each neck he'd tear open and every knowing look the brothers shared.

Kol- who hated the wolves for taking Henrik from them. Kol, who resented him for a lot but never for being of wolf himself.

"That can easily be arranged." Jamie agreed, a wild smile brightening her face, doing nothing to banish Kol from his mind. "I'll have everything worked out before your grand entrance, I promise."

It would have been a lie to say Nik didn't have a theatrical bone in his body, he loved to make a scene, much to her amusement. It could have reminded her of Kai, if she wasn't so damn forgetful.

"I knew I could count on you. Now, get to it, little-miss-bed-hopper."

A smug smile stretched at his cheeks, blue eyes fond and crinkled with mirth.

The almighty and fearsome Original Hybrid was met with a pillow to the face courtesy of that offhand comment, left to splutter feathers and cotton in the wake of a teenage girl and her pet dog.

Stefan couldn't help but laugh.

"Asshole." She muttered.

"Supernatural hearing, love!"

* * *

Jamie was relieved to get away from the bar. What she had done had worked a treat, and she'd had Richard Abeson wrapped around her little finger from the moment she'd walked in. It didn't make her feel any less dirty by the end of the day, having his eyes rake over her periodically and his wandering prone hands on her knee, trickling further up as the conversation progressed.

She was tired, but she'd gotten the information she'd been after. She always did.

Her and Stefan had fallen into step wordlessly, and she thought the vampire almost looked relieved when she'd slipped out the entrance of the bar.

It was a precarious partnership, but it worked. She'd reel the victims in and he'd be set upon them like a dog, otherwise his job consisted of guarding her like a rottweiler. Someone else might have gotten cocky with a vampire at their disposal, but she trusted herself more than she trusted Stefan Salvatore's blood lust. There was something fake about it all, he was hiding something, and every time they so much as neared Virginia he'd get antsy- more so than usual.

They'd opted to walk back to the motel in relative silence, she'd done enough talking in the bar and she'd be fooling herself if she believed he hadn't been listening in for nothing more than a sign of trouble. He tried to hide it, but he was invested in the whole ordeal as much as she was, for his own reasons, whatever they may be.

Coming to a stop, she watched an old man flip an opening sign to closed as a bell rang out. It was a pet store, and the display had caught her eye.

They were siamese fighting fish, every colour of a summer's day and sunsets- the warm kind, not the violent ones that ripped the sky into pieces and burst into bruises and gray water. Jamie didn't know how she knew them, but she couldn't look away.

It wasn't anything special, the fish weren't fighting they just kinda swam and sat pretty in their tanks built up like block towers. The puppies were in the other window in a pen, a parakeet on its perch, but for some reason beyond her she couldn't look away from those fish.

Maybe, subconsciously, it reminded her of her homelife and family. One for Grayson and her, the others rainbow fish and river trout; the ones in the lake beneath the bridge- they'd swim on by, but herself and her Dad had fought, hadn't they? Him with his elbows to the window and her with the seatbelt. Had there been a winner? She didn't think so, but she had held out the longest, like always. Forever enduring without complaint, like the clinical creature her Dad had been and unwittingly crafted her to be.

Consciously, however, she still couldn't look away.

"What are we, uh, looking at?" Stefan wondered, and he almost managed to sound amused for a minute there. A grueling feat for him, surely.

"They're betta's, siamese fighting fish. Highly territorial, if they're kept in the same tank they'll fight to death."

He was looking then, too.

They both just stood there, in the busy street full of bustling people; each one with a life as unique and complex as their own. Dead still and quiet.

There was something beautiful about those fish, like all things sad and deadly. They both considered them with apprehension and wistfulness, able to relate on a certain level, to understand what it was all about. It was the same kind of look people wore when they saw Jamie, with her sad smile and death-dealing eyes as granite as gravestones and malleable as upturned soil.

"It's like my brother and me, my brother Damon." He said all of a sudden, "There were times where… Like the fish, always fighting, and there were times when I thought we'd kill each other."

Stefan had never talked about his brother before, not to Jaime. Nik did, though, like a plaything to toy with and hold over his head. She wondered if she had a brother, the same way Stefan and Nik and Elijah did, and if they would have been like the betta's, too. Or perhaps a sister, or both or a whole load of siblings. It sounded nice, she decided, and she liked the sound of having a brother or a sister. The idea of someone out there, with the same blood and the same parents, made her feel just a little bit less lonely for a while.

She couldn't remember. The girl who flashed through her mind she didn't know from sam, a boy smiling at her without a name. Elena and Jeremy were as dead to her as she was to them, but they'd had their memories at the very least, she had nothing.

"You didn't though," she reminded him, "and now you're not in the same tank."

"Yeah. I guess so."

"If you put a mirror up, so that they could see each other, they'd kill themselves trying to get to the other." She went on, and it felt important to say it.

It had been Elena to stand between them, unknowingly for both of them. The pair of them, peering into the window at the unsuspecting fish had something more in common than they had accounted for. A girl, and hadn't it always come down to a girl? Elena, who stood in the tangled web of family relations, as eager to step into a brother's tiff as she had been reluctant to stand in her own ring.

It wasn't fair. That Jamie had to fight to sink or swim, that Lainey kept her blissful ignorance intact only to take a liking to family drama and fixing brothers- It wasn't _fair._ She had been in the basement, too. Why was it that she hadn't had nightmares or heard the voice, that Jamie had been left to the horrors of what went on behind closed doors while Elena had a full night's sleep and a Father that loved her without question. Maybe, if Jamie could have remembered it all, she wouldn't have been able to stand looking at those fish. Because while they swam she had been well and truly sunk.

He nodded, gaze hardened but scarily elegiac. "Let's go. As much as I like to keep him waiting, somehow I don't think it's worth the earache."

Jamie smiled, "There'll be no living with him, after this, you know."

They didn't need to get to the room, Nik was waiting impatiently by the car, arms crossed and a bored look on his face. The dog, as he referred to him more often than not, sitting by his side.

She thought about telling him about the fish, but ultimately she decided not to.

"His name is Richard Abeson, twenty nine years old, and he's just got out of a five year long relationship. He's got an aptitude of drinking and driving, lives alone in an apartment complex not too far from the town center, and can't seem to keep company for long. Guy's practically the poster child for commitment issues, really." Jamie listed off seamlessly.

"And?" Nik prompted expectantly.

She had copped on early that he always wanted more than he was initially given, something that Stefan had either missed out on or simply didn't care enough to adjust to. Jamie, though, always counted on it.

"Got a recent looking scar running down his chest, definitely not a medical incision- he's been clawed at by something. I couldn't see how far down it goes, but it runs pretty deep. Looks like his parting from the pack wasn't so sweet of a departure. He's incredibly bitter about it, too."

Nik looked pretty impressed, even though he shouldn't have been, but she took it as a good sign. "I'm going to go find dinner. Jay, would you care to join us?"

If Stefan objected to being included in those plans he was smart enough not to voice it, but she shook her to the negative anyway. "Go on without me, I had dinner with your Lon Chaney Jr."

Kaleb saw her, that evening, perched on the hood of a car with a dog intertwined with her legs. She was smoking a cigarette, watching the clouds part for the wavering sun, face brazen against the fierce light.

"I wasn't expecting to see you again." He admitted as he took his place to her left, letting his own gaze sweep the parking lot.

"We decided to stay a few more days, something came up. An old friend of Nik's." She spoke softly, almost mindlessly as she formed the words around the smoke. "We've got no place to be, anyhow. What's a few more days?"

They stayed still, letting the silence ease in with some sense of comfort and familiarity. Jamie thought a lot about those fish, about her summer and the vagueness of what she thought might form memories. There was also a matter of dreams- ones that had staved off when she spent the night with Kaleb.

There was something about him, she noticed, a familiar security of something washing over her that she couldn't identify. She found herself settling into his companionship without complaint, and it was nice to have someone other than Nik and Stefan to talk to- the simplicity of it was something that didn't go amiss, and sometimes it was the most simple of things that made life worthwhile.

Spending a night with a boy she'd met over the summer and didn't have a hope of meeting again just seemed so normal. Isn't that what typical teenage girls did on vacation? Filled their time with summer romance and the notion of desire? She thought that's what they did, and it was easy to fall into, despite not having done it before to her memory.

"Do you want to go to the bar with me?" Kaleb asked her in earnest.

"Sure."

Compelled staff didn't bat an eyelid at the pair of them and a dog trailing into the establishment, and children cooed at ole Roscoe and he ate the attention right up.

He watched her, the bare skin stretched tight over bone and the dark hair brushing against her cheeks and falling into her eyes. The girl, whose name he'd mustered the courage to ask for on a whim, folded herself across the bar, a waning crescent smile and freckle dotted cheeks spluttering like stars in the constellations.

"I'm sixteen going on thirty, if you know what I mean."

He looked at her, "no, I don't think I do."

"Well, one day you might. When you're older, maybe, or when you _feel_ older."

She seemed absent, but she felt so damn tired that she couldn't help it. Part of her knew Kaleb would understand, whatever she was saying was something that would resonate with the boy with the blue eyes in a motel outside Indianapolis- it had to.

"Do you always talk in paradoxes?"

"I don't quite know myself, but to me it makes perfect sense." She admitted, seemingly amused at herself- because hasn't Jamie's entire life been a paradox anyway?

* * *

 **(AN: I couldn't help myself.**

 **Jamie sleeping with Kol's future vessel comes across as highly amusing to me. It also serves a purpose, it's not just pointless sex for the sake of it, but it did make me chuckle anyway.**

 **Also… I'm going to drop a little teaser here, so don't bother if you don't want it spoiled.**

 **Kol may make an appearance in, let's say, chapter nine.**

 **If that's not the exact chapter then don't have my head for it, okay? It's what I have planned, but sometimes writing it doesn't work out the way I planned and scenes get cut and impromptu moments happen, okay? Sue me!**

 **Kaleb's appearance, for example, was literally figured out the day before I published chapter six. It just popped into my head and I had the chapter half written and next thing I knew I had it all done.**

 **And now I have an actual plan for why he showed up and I am DYING to write a Kaleb Westphall one/two-shot.**

 **This poor boy is going to further the plot and fix out a lot of shit I was struggling to explain all in one hit, anyone who doesn't think he's a godsend is wrong I tell you!)**


	22. Eight, Others

**Chapter Eight, Others**

Did she make your heart beat faster than I could?  
Did she give you what you hoped for?  
Oh, nights of loveless love, I hope it made you feel good,  
Knowing how much I adored you  
Knowing how much I adored you

 _Love, Daughter_

* * *

"What's your favourite colour?"

"I dunno." Jamie toyed a little with the corner of the pillow, eyes downcast, "What's yours?"

"Yellow- and you must have one. Everyone does."

She didn't. Or at least she thought she didn't- she couldn't remember.

" _Navy green. The colour I'd paint my room, I mean. Navy green- like the sea."_

"Blue."

" _You have the bluest eyes."_

Kaleb was looking at her strangely, his thumb pausing in its circled motion against her hip, starting up again in the opposite direction like he was rewinding time. They were in bed, him propped up on one elbow and looking down at her, her laid out flat on her back. "Alright, lucky number? I like fourteen, myself."

A number popped into her head without a second thought.

" _First thought best thought."_

"Ten. What's your favourite animal?"

"Bear."

"Dog." She thought of Roscoe, a happy smile tugging at her lips.

"Favourite month or season?"

"May and winter."

" _May 10th, 1994."_

He chuckled softly, chest rumbling in a delightful way. "Seems like a contradiction, that. I like Autumn myself, think your lot calls it Fall."

"The leaves fall." She spoke languidly, furrowing her brow- "Hey, what else do you guys say differently? Nik's British, too, ya know? He's travelled a lot, though, so the differences don't really mean much to him, he doesn't really point them out."

" _Just one bite, love-"_

He hummed in thought, pulling her a little closer, squeezing. "Well, we call the sidewalk the pavement. Soda is pop. Shopping cards are trolleys and we call the car trunk the boot. We have these markets, we call them boot sales, where people sell their stuff second hand on homemade stalls in a field or car park."

Jamie was tired, she could barely keep her eyes open, and she had this haunted look about her. She was hearing the facsimile voices of the past, she was remembering everything all at once and nothing simultaneously as she lay in some strange boys bed. A boy she had liked because he reminded her of someone, or something- her head felt like it was going to explode.

"Hey- Hey, Jay, is everything okay?"

She mustered up a tentative smile, "Yeah, everything's great."

Kaleb nodded, not entirely convinced. "Let's go to sleep, yeah? I'm pretty tired."

Blue eyes, an earnest smile.

Jamie buried her head into his chest, screwing her eyes tight shut. She was remembering, and it was taking longer to forget; she thought she might not, this time. Or else she was to relive half thoughts for the rest of her days.

That night, in the strong hold of some blue eyed boy, she dreamed of a man with dark hair and honey eyes.

Hollow laughter against marble halls, scornful and harsh. The man with the voice was sitting back against a chair, dressed in finery and choking on his own shallow scorn.

He was handsome, she noted, but she was overwhelmed by his emotions- just how strongly he felt, and she wondered idly if he felt this way about everything.

They were talking. She wouldn't remember that, either- but she was starting to, as the days went on, each picture bursting vividly like old overexposed movies that flickered to life on the screen. His voice booming, fading and tipping, reeling until the tape ran its course before starting over again. Jamie was remembering, slowly but surely, herself and the dreams that hung over her at night.

All of a sudden the boy was gone, the picture bubbled and burnt like film did when it caught fire. The edges browned over, flimsy emulsion startling the exposure before eating away to a crisp husk, and another voice filled her mind altogether.

" _Jamie."_ It said, and she thought it might be someone she knew. " _Jaaamie, that's it, isn't it? Your_ _ **name**_ _."_

With a start she realised it sounded like her, in that foreign way in which your own voice was played back and you didn't fully recognise it. It sounded against the dark void of a room like a scratched vinyl, when the needle would jump and skip and the stereo blared and strained before aligning properly once more. The needle seemed to be struggling, though, and it never managed to sound out quite right- always a little too heavy on the bass and blaring louder on the left stereo.

"My name is Jay." She whimpered, curling tighter into the blankets and praying she'd suffocate just then. Anything but live, she thought wildly, anything but face the past.

She saw herself, standing in the corner, just a shadow with wet hair and moonbeam skin. It wasn't her, though, she begged, it couldn't be- she was still in bed, and wasn't Kaleb beside her?

Jamie, the _Other_ Jamie, laughed, "No it's _not_."

Her limbs were all tucked safely into the sheets, because they couldn't get her then, not when she was underneath the sheets- she couldn't feel the coldness of dead hands and the soft fallible flesh touch her feverish skin, or the sharpness of nails clawing at her and cutting to the bone- outside those bedsheets was no man's land, all it took was for one foot to stick out of the blankets or an arm to dangle from the mattress- then she'd be taken. She'd be free game. It frightened her to death.

" _Your name isn't even Jamie, it's Tinkerbell!"_ The _Other_ screamed at her, " _You're not Jay!"_

"Please..." She whispered, screwing her eyes tight shut.

The _Other_ approached the bed, naked and cold, a horrible wetness sounding off the floorboards with a slosh and a smack as bare _something_ stepped forward. It wasn't skin- skin couldn't possibly be so white, not even in the pale moonlight, and it wasn't human.

She remembered, in that tired way of hers that came about all of a sudden- like ripping off a bandaid- a story. A man, a ghost on a gurney, had told it to her, she thought. About something _Other-_ like that snatched children away in their dreams. The worst bedtime story of them all.

" _What's the matter, Tink?"_ The _Other_ mocked with a twisted grin, and Jamie could feel it's damp breath spread across her pale cheeks. " _Not real enough for ya?"_

Her eyes couldn't peel away, no matter how much she tried to close them shut. The monosyllabic figure was draped in seaweed and saltwater, like a fish bride. It's eyes were stone, not grey but granite, and it blinked it's milky orbs and ash fell and burned at it's eyelashes, tempered in flames. With each step it's limbs twisted, dried seaweed forming a crown atop it's curled head and tipping to the forefront, and it grinned with sharp teeth like a piranha, curling across it's bluish lips in a demented retch.

" _I'm real, alright. I'm_ _ **you.**_ _I'm every thought in your head and every dream you've had, the car in the sea and the scalpel silken with skin!"_

It was upon her, now, hunched over the head of the bed with it's freakishly sharp nails set to get her. It was on her, now, and it was all over. She was going to die, tangled in some stranger's bed sheets with sea water trickling down her cheeks.

" _I'm the_ _ **Other**_ _you. The dead drowned girl! Where down is up and the fish eat flesh, that I know!"_

Razor blade claws cinched across her chest, and she moaned. The _Other_ swept it's head back, a new set of teeth barking at the seams where it's neck was attached with crude thread and what looked like fishing line, gaping at her and spitting salt water. She screamed louder, until the nails swiped at her neck and tore apart tendons.

The seaweed crown was laden with thorns, like the crown Jesus wore when they he took the cross against his back. It brushed against Jamie's cheeks, scratching at her and getting caught in her skin, dragging and tearing at her as the _Other_ placed its blue lips atop her own.

" _You'll die, too! You'll be just like_ _ **me, Jamie! Sink! Sink with me!"**_

Jamie awoke with a soundless scream, and if she had looked at herself in the mirror she might have remembered something else. Her face was blue, just like when she was a child, as blue as the lips that had been on hers just then.

* * *

"Did you sleep well?" Nik spoke suddenly, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye as he took another turn on the interstate. He had one hand on the wheel, and the other doing pirouettes from the clutch to his leg, tapping and gyrating against the expensive denim of his jeans. The early morning light bathed him, clad in his long sleeved white tee, in gold that made him look tanned and young, his curly blonde locks shining like his white toothed smile.

"I had a dream again. The same one, I think," she mused quietly, voice thick with concentration but airy in its mindlessness as she began to add shade.

Jamie looked impossibly young despite the bags under her eyes with freckles dotted against her sun kissed face. She was sketching in their sketchbook in the passenger seat, with her leg angled so that she was facing him with her right foot resting against the dash and leaning heavily against the left bunched close to her chest so as to balance the paper perfectly. Roscoe, who never could go very long without cementing his place by his quasi-owner's side, stuck his head out from the backseat floor to rest half upon the cupholder and her leg, seemingly content to just rest there with his owner's sparse touch as a reminder that she was there. Rough pencil strokes filled the page, of Nik's likeness as he drived and Roscoe's immense beauty that came about natural and warm.

"Oh?" He inquired, a raised eyebrow angled sharply over his brow bone that she was quick to catch with her pencil against the page.

"Mhm, about a boy."

 _And_ _ **Others,**_ _too._

She shivered, and she swore she could smell salt water wafting in the air.

He had a great face to draw, all sharp lines and bone structure, and it was like dominos, one thing changed and he suddenly looked entirely different. It was fun to just draw him, to catch the way the light raked through his hair in a tawdry gold and made his cheek bones draw shadows and go sharp.

"Kai?"

Jamie faltered, looking down at the white of the paper and the strokes of led. One dark, jagged line had slipped across the page, and she blinked.

Roscoe whined, pawing at the gear shift to try and climb from the back.

When she turned a little she saw that Stefan was fast asleep, and she placed a calming hand on her four legged companion's neck.

"What do you m…" She stopped, screwing her eyes tight shut with a shuddering breath. "Who?"

Nik wouldn't look at her, then. "When we found you it was the only thing you said, right before you passed out."

"I… I, um. Really, I don't know. _Kai_ , are you sure? That's all I said?"

"Kai." He agreed, solemnly.

It was nothing, really, just a jolt of electricity- a sudden shock that made it feel like she had just woken up. For real, this time. And a boy's face, with a wide smile and aching sides, seemed to split her brain in a searing image that made her want to cry out.

Remembering was painful. Forgetting, more so, strangely.

Sparing a glance at the page she realised she hadn't just been drawing Nik.

The _Other_ was there, hair woven with seaweed and eyes long dead. Kaleb, with his blue eyes. The page was a whirl of black marks and smudges, scribbles of wet hair- inky and dark, and white skin with no shading. Two mouths, one peeking from beneath a chin, and a dozen rows of needle teeth as stark white as bone.

He had blue eyes.

(Not like Kai's. Not like Johnny's. It was a good kind of pain.)

A dozen sketches of Nik and Roscoe, studious in nature, were soft against the page.

Jamie snapped the sketchbook shut, her smile strained. "I think that's enough sketching for today."

Nik nodded.

* * *

Billy, for once, had sought out his nephew during his drunken endeavours.

Jeremy made no move to resist the heavy hand and the lopsided steps his Uncle made to guide him, the both of them tittering precariously at the edge of the pavement before falling back to safety much due to Jeremy's weight pulling them. He realised, in a Jamie-like stream of consciousness, that his Uncle had lost a lot of weight since they'd first met. It was an uncomfortable and worrisome thought, and he wasn't sure what to do with the information.

Cars whirled past with a dizzying force that disturbed the air around them, and the daytime rush of the streets made somewhat of a spectacle of the pair as they trudged along the path- trying in earnest not to cause too much of a scene.

Mother's pulled their children hurriedly along by the hands, pulling them a little bit closer as they passed by.

Stumbling, Billy pulled himself up straight only to falter and collide with Jeremy again, snorting as he did so and tightening the arm he had round his nephew's neck- a bottle clutched in his hand that he offered up forthcomingly. It was a strangely endearing offer, the notion of sharing a bottle of whiskey with the only male figure he had to his life, and he couldn't imagine his Dad or Uncle John ever sharing a moment with him like this. He found that the more time he spent with his Uncle the more he learned; about drinking, girls, Jamie and his Parents.

"You know what, kid?" Billy started, not for the first time, to say. "I _like_ you! You're alright, you know?"

Helplessly, Jeremy started to laugh.

It wasn't funny. He was holding a grown man's weight easily, his Uncle was terribly drunk before noon, and everyone was staring at them. But he couldn't help it, he laughed.

It was a small sound at first, a barely audible huff and shaking shoulders. Billy offered him a stupidly lopsided smile, eyes glazed, before tripping up again. Then, Jeremy really started to laugh, his stomach aching and chest wracking as he fought to catch his breath and keep them upright.

"Jesus, the ground's tryna kill me!" Billy whispered shoddily with comically wide eyes, mouth forming a gormless 'o'.

And Jeremy laughed some more.

* * *

Jamie, it turned out, was an exceptional tease.

All night Richard Abeson had been on the brink; of lust, of hope- he'd catch glimpses of her here and there. One minute she'd be perched at the bar, he'd see her from the side of his eye and whip his head around only for her to be gone in that very same moment. The next, he thought he saw her walking towards a table, but when he made to follow he'd gotten caught up by a stream of people rushing the entrance like the tides. When he was walking home he could have sworn he saw her, in the dim light of the afternoon and the quickly oncoming dusk, smoking a cigarette by an alleyway, but as a car blared by with its fleeting headlights she was nowhere to be seen.

Jamie, it seemed, had a knack for slipping away from him, right between his eager fingers.

The trio; Roscoe at their toes, followed their target with ease. Nik watched the human play her part, constructing each scene like an actress, and just when he would begin to think the act was up- she'd succeed.

It was a trick entirely of her own, a sleight of hand.

She'd fall into her place, fitting herself into the built up set like a puzzle piece, and nobody noticed the way she carefully constructed each piece. Jamie had slipped from the bar and ducked around the wall, not pausing for so much as a glance at her old friend Richard; she didn't need to see so much as to _know_ she had made an impact. Of course she had been paying attention to the crowd of football men outside, waiting for the exact moment to strut by so that they'd tumble ensue; a curtain set up for the grand reveal ( _Now you see it, Richie, and now you don't)_. The alleyway trick was something that had come about naturally, it had been simple enough to move so that she was flattened against the concealed doorway of the bar, where the wall was overhanged and erased her presence altogether.

Nik wanted to paint those scenes. It had been an amusing task, watching her evade a man who had taken a liking to her- maybe a little too much, he noticed unsteadily- and falling into each frame with grace. All the grace of a jaybird, he thought to himself, with her battered wings flapping up dust and beating her weathered feathers like old leather.

"That alleyway stinks of piss." Jay deadpanned as she fell into step, rejoining the group and taking her rightful place between both creatures.

"Believe me, we know." Stefan scrunched up his nose in distaste, shooting a look behind them as if to glare at the accused space.

Nik grinned, "You did splendid, love. Our mate Richard seems quite besotted with you already, he looked a bit struck each time you eluded him."

"You're welcome, by the way."

"Was I not just in the middle of expressing my courteous admiration?"

She grinned, "Oh, I know. I just like to hear you repeat yourself."

"If you want me to compliment you that bad all you've got to do is ask, love."

Jay snorted, and Nik shot her a rather winsome smile.

She held her arms out all of a sudden, making the two vampires either side of her come to a sudden halt.

"Around the corner is Richard's place. Can you hear him messing around with his keys?"

Nik could. He heard the metallic shink of the keyrings jingle as he shifted them from his pocket, the heavy steps of engineer boots hulking up the steps. He shot Jay an impressed look, and he could never fathom how on earth she still managed to surprise him- he felt a bit like Richard, then, staring at a girl who always eluded him at the very last second.

"And now… We wait." She smiled, "The element of surprise is what's going to get him to spill his guts."

In many ways she had taken the operation into her own hands, much attributed to Nik's askance in the first place, but she enjoyed scheming- she was _good_ at it. Always one step ahead, always ready to put something into motion at perfectly planned intervals. He watched her take the wheel, he didn't think so much of it as much as he wanted to see what she would do; he had acquired Stefan for his blood thirst, but the jaybird whispering in his ear was something different altogether.

* * *

Kai slept through the eclipse's now, he couldn't stand the sight of it- that sliver of sun raining down in tawdry beams and casting its shadow on the world day in and day out- not since his Tinkerbell had gone. Not since she had left him in the shadows.

Her eyes, moonbeams, followed him in his sleep. He didn't dream of the eclipse, but her eyes… They harrowed and shuddered, he could feel the ghost of her skin against his own, the beating of her heart and the ghostly grey of her orbs searing into his features and cloudy in pain.

"Mali, don't." She whispered, and it didn't sound much like her voice, but dreams had an odd way of tricking the mind. It didn't matter whose voice it was, not with those eyes.

"It _hurts!"_ She cried out, choking on her own breath and words, "Mali, it hurts!"

"Where does it hurt, Tink, tell me where it hurts and I'll make it better." He begged of her, and he was on his knees now too, watching her curl up into a ball and retreat into herself as she cried out. "I- I can help you, I'll make it all better. I promise."

Panic set in. He gripped at her and pulled her close, nothing but a desperate child seeking the closeness and warmth of a Mother's hold- of Jamie's hold. It was that day, the day he relived a hundred times only to see it again when he closed his eyes. She was leaving him, _again._

In his sleep, laid out against the ripples of sheets against a musty unused bed, he writhed and moaned. Her name, mostly. Pleas, declarations and apologies, anything and everything. No one was there to soothe him, to wake him or smile at him when he woke. Sometimes, even while awake, it still felt like a dream. It was like she had left him all over again.

He hurt her in his dreams. He didn't want to, but it had always been inevitable- had he wanted to hurt her in the first place? It was hard to remember, now, as the loneliness stemmed on and the days dawdled until the eclipse took over once more. Had he ever wanted to hurt his Tink? Like he had hurt Jo and-

Jo had betrayed him. His Tink hadn't. She wouldn't do that to him.

But then why was he hurting her in the first place?

Kai scrambled forwards, arms reached out desperately, hopeless but somehow hopeful and so scared of being alone. Deep, cold fear washed over him, his pale face screwed up in horror.

"K-Kai, you killed me." Jamie cried, blood dribbling from her bruised lips.

"What- No?!"

He looked down only to see that she had been right. In his hand was a bloodied knife, and her stomach was in shreds and spilling everywhere, warm as she squirmed beneath him, moonbeam eyes imploring.

In his dreams the eclipse didn't take his Tinkerbell, he did it himself.

Kai woke up all of a sudden, sitting straight up and fighting against the tangles of the sheets.

"Tink?!" He called out, terrified.

He blinked, fisting at his eyes, his tired eyes. The room was empty and in shambles, he'd trashed it in another one of his fits, unable to control the anger and the pain and the loneliness that festered beneath his skin.

Kai realised he was all alone, painfully so.

* * *

 _ **(AN: Jamie's not the only one reliving the past, and she's certainly not the only one suffering.**_

 ** _I don't know if I should have uploaded this, but it's my birthday this week so I'm travelling home and have a lot of shit to do. I'm going to see about posting chapters of my other fics, too, but don't know if I'll get around to it.)_**


	23. Eight(05)

The sun was going, going, gone. It took all the light with it, leaving nothing but the whimsy feeling of sobering up sinking in his stomach and pulling at his mind. It was all drying up in the well, he was holding empty bottles and praying for a last call, brow heavy with sweat and lip tugging in a frown; Billy hated household addictions, he wouldn't touch a pill, just the booze. Miranda coulda learnt a thing or two from him, alright, none of that pesky valium for him, just the good stuff.

He looked at his nephew, and he understood, he'd been sober for a while and it took a sober mind to see just how daft people got sometimes. Looking at Jeremy, he was glad he wasn't sober, but he was getting there, slowly but surely.

It was a hangover; a foreign concept. He hadn't not been drunk in a long, long time, and drunk men didn't get hungover. That would require him to stop drinking in the first place.

But he didn't leave, not even to get another drink. And God could he feel it, now, in his bones and his muddled mind. It made him remember things, his memory going sharp without a drink, and hadn't that been why he'd started all along?

"Do you remember you Grandfather Bill, kid?" He wondered suddenly, "Gawd, you must've been a real young'n when he went on his merry way, it was a long time ago."

He felt old. Older. Soon his hair would start to grey, he could feel it.

Jeremy saw the way his hands shook, Billy knew he did, but a man couldn't help the shakes anymore than he could a heart attack. He shook his head, trying to get rid of that pesky voice begging for a drink, feeling the bitter bile of memories better left unspoken rise like it always did when the alcohol began to fade.

"I was five. I remember that much."

"Yeah, well, that was the first time I saw you. I hadn't seen…" my daughter, my jaime, "the twins, I hadn't seen them since they were babies, I s'pose. Don't remember what I was doing before the funeral." He realised, horribly, that it was true.

What had he been doing when his Dad was dying? Had he known, had Grayson or John bothered to call at all? He hadn't a clue, he'd been too many bottles deep back then to so much as remember where he was living at the time, he could hardly remember getting to Mystic Falls… How he knew his Dad was dead in the first place was a mystery. He thought maybe it had been Miranda to call with the news.

"Anyway, I was at the funeral. You might have been there, or maybe not. Jamie, though, she was there. Elena, too. Last time I saw your old man until that summer Jamie stayed with me."

Jeremy might have been listening, but Billy was lost. His eldest brother had took him by the shoulder that day, and he'd hugged him, for the first time since they'd been kids. Later on, he'd took that same hand he'd used to pull him in for a hug and had punched him with it, and Billy had been so drunk that he'd almost gone down like a ton of bricks- the only reason he didn't was so that he could hit his eldest brother back, harder. That had been only a few hours after the funeral, and to Billy it felt like he'd never been sober since.

Grayson had held a grudge for a long time after that, there was something about a man leaving a wake in a police car that rubbed folks the wrong way. Didn't matter that Grayson started it, Billy had ended it, violently. It was the only way he knew how.

He recognised her that day, his Jamie, at his father's funeral, and how could he not when she looked just like him? The black hair and grey eyes he'd given her, the ones Grayson had took away and always held a little out of reach, as if to say 'now ya see it, Billy boy, now ya don't, ya bastard'. It had been a sudden rush of sobriety and cold that hit him, looking at his little girl being paraded around by his fucking brother and his dumb cunt wife. Call be damned, if it had been her to telephone him in the first place, that is. That had been why he'd gotten so drunk afterwards, because he'd already drank the hole that his Dad had left full and there was hardly anymore room but for that tiny piece left. The one his baby girl had left behind when she'd been taken from him, just like everything else he had in life.

So, he saw her, standing at the grave all alone, and he'd walked up to her like a man after trial making his way to the prison guard. Strangely he remembered thinking of Johnny Cash all the way, of Folsom Prison Blues and the train he sang about.

It had been like looking at those old grainy photographs from his childhood, the ones he hadn't kept round because he couldn't bare looking at them. He'd seen a picture of his old man and Jamie and he felt like crying, because for a minute he thought it was him in that picture- but it had been too bright, the picture was crisp and the details were fine and it was nothing like the photographs they had taken way back when he was that age. His Dad had looked old, and he hadn't been around for years by then, the absent son.

Absence… it summed him life up well. Grayson couldn't stand that the old man wanted his Billy, his youngest, his favourite son despite the absence.

" _Hey, kid," he offered her a warm, albeit weak, smile, settling a heavy hand against her sunstained shoulder, the other in his deep pockets. "You okay?"_

 _God, she was the spitting image of him when he was her age. The same nose and the pretty locks, he remembered his brothers making fun of him for it, and she was going to be tall just like him, too._

 _Jamie frowned, "Won't Grandpa Bill be scared in the ground?"_

 _He blinked, "I don't think so."_

 _Looking at her was like looking into a mirror, a twisted one that brought everything back all at once. Her eyes, the same grey and the same shape, were like little slivers of mirror, they were ghostly just then, he thought. Cutlasses, brimming steel on temperance. It was like she was there just to spite him, to haunt him like the past did, and he needed a drink now more than ever._

" _It's dark, and cold down there. Was he scared of bugs, d'ya think?"_

 _Her earnest face peered up at him, unruined yet. Had he ever looked so unscathed? She was a pretty little thing, but something about her seemed off- no kid had any right to sound so knowing._

 _She had been a curious girl, wide eyed but not one bit afraid. But he was. Fuck, he was scared shitless all of a sudden, just looking at his little girl, scant few inches between them- so close he could reach her. Closer than he'd ever been to her since the day she'd been born._

" _Your Grandpa? No. He ever bring you fishin', girlie? Man loved baiting, he'll like watching all those worms wriggle about."_

 _They stood there, together, Father and Daughter unbeknownst to her but painstakingly so to him. It was cruel that she took after him, positively cruel for her to be so obviously_ _ **his**_ _but not his at the same time._

" _He's worm food now." She told him in an impossibly plain voice. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, worm to worm. Compost for the bugs."_

"God, she hated that dumb dress your Mom stuffed her in!" Billy busted out with laughter, "You shoulda seen her- she had her hair all cut wonky in this shoddy shaggy do, she'd gotten her hands on Miranda's sewing scissors the night before."

Part of him, still to this day, thought Grayson had let her do it just so she looked more like Billy, just so he'd see it and he'd _know._ Billy could imagine Grayson with those damned scissors, chopping away at her inky black trestles of hair and grinning to himself like the sorry prick he was. 'Let him choke on this,' is what he'd be thinking all the while doing it, snip snip snip, 'hey, brother, the old man's dead and this is _my_ daughter.'

"Your parents had practically shoved little Elena in the forefront with this pretty dress and her long hair, and then there was Jamie whose dress strap was falling off her shoulders and her scuffed knee poking out from under the skirts. They wouldn't let her wear that damn hat, you know? She was all moody about it, my old man had given it to her when they were watching the game together or something."

He didn't mention that it had been his hat first. That his Dad had kept on to it and gave it to his Daughter like some creepy carbon copy of the past.

"Your sister walks straight up to me at the bar, bold as brass, and tells me that her Uncle John's a- and I quote- 'Bastard man', and that he don't know squat!" Billy snorted, lips pulled up in a handsome grin, "Kid, she was golden. Miranda kept trying to get her to stop tugging at her skirts and tryna smooth out her hair, it was standing on end and she kept shaking it like a wet dog."

 _He felt the cold, more impervious to it in his teetotalism. He was shaking like a leaf, now, and the kid was watching him. It was like she knew he was a dirty old wino, that he needed a drink more than he needed air. It was impossible, she was just a child, but part of him knew better than that as she zeroed in on his hand, watching it quiver._

" _Who are you?" She wondered, looking up at his face as if to wager if he'd tell the truth._

" _I'm your Uncle Billy."_

 _Liar. What the hell was he supposed to say- Hey, Kiddo, look at me, your old man with the DT's, just call me Shakes the alcoholic clown! Yeah, that'd go over well, Grayson would love that. It's not like he'd put him in that grave with their Dad if he told her._

 _As if she knew he was lying, like she possessed all truths and demonstrated it to all the liars and cheats alike, she looked him hard in the eye._

" _He called for you, you know. Kept calling your name over and over, and he'd pull me up on the bed and hug me. He called me Billy, and he told me he was sorry."_

 _Then, helplessly, he told her the truth. He choked out a feeble, cold and clammy; "I need a drink."_

 _The prayer of a dipsomaniac. Except Jesus was a tall red with a cork instead of a halo._

 _He thought he was going to get sick, and she smiled._

 _Of course she did. He had been telling the truth, after all._

"You know… I was in AA once, though I dare say there's anything anonymous about an alcoholic like me, Jeremy." His hands were shaking, from the memories or sudden sobriety he did not know. "The counsellors and the sponsors, they were quick to tell me how I was killing myself. I didn't mind it, I had nothing else to do but die."

Jeremy, only what- sixteen, maybe? He looked at his Uncle, and Billy knew what he saw. A man going old, a man who might have been better off dead after all. Why couldn't it have been him? He'd gotten behind the wheel drunk plenty enough. Why couldn't it have been him instead? It only took that one time to go wrong-

"I went back, once. Didn't tell no one, it was after Jamie's… after the funeral. 'Cept I s'pose it wasn't about the drinking at all, because I don't plan on giving that up. And they sat there telling me about life, you don't know how many hours there are in a day 'till you're clean, and they told me I could live. What for, though? I lost a father, my brothers, a damn dog, a daughter and a niece. Yet they still tell me that I have a life worth living for."

And like that, like he was behind the wheel of a car, Billy Gilbert crashed. God knows it should have been him. It should have been him.

"Say, have you got any booze in this gettup, kid?" He asked miserably.

Jeremy shrugged.

Billy should have been behind that wheel, not Grayson. It should of been him picking up his daughter from a party, never Gray. He should of died with her, he should have sank. Billy should of done a lot of things.

* * *

She raised her hand and knocked at the door, once, twice, thrice- It was a heavy set door with an ornament knocker, a lion's head in brass or steel. Old, worn down by the years and brushing against the cement outside so that the bottom wore away in scratches and chunks where the pavement didn't align. She thought it must let in a terrible draft, the kind that chilled you to the bone even with a blanket. The wood felt like it might splinter her knuckles, right where the skin dipped and thinned out, scratchy like old wool and dry linen.

"Wha' the hell do you want?" A low cadence called, the door swinging open suddenly.

He levelled Jay with a glare, one that she almost looked bored being on the receiving end of. How was she supposed to be scared of a human when she was leafed by the two greatest predators in the world and a blue merle tri with demon eyes? It wasn't confidence or arrogance, Nik simply couldn't imagine her being scared of anyone, she certainly wasn't scared of _him_. She ought to be though, he couldn't help but think, she was smart enough to be fearful, but she wasn't. Against all odds, she felt more at home with vampires and hybrid's than she did with her own kind.

Jay and Nik exchanged glances, taking in the messy blonde with interest, her looks satisfied and his expectant. This was not Richard, and the possibility of Jay being wrong struck him suddenly.

He had trusted a human to take charge, after all those years of doing everything seemingly by his own merit. With Elijah and Rebekah and Kol always disappointing him in the end. Somehow he had found a human that exceeds his every expectation seamlessly. Perhaps he hadn't been thinking when he relayed delicate information and took her counsel to heart, maybe he was going soft, though he quickly brushed that notion away. Instead, he considered all she had done and the words they'd

Unperturbed, Jamie offered a sweet smile. "Hey, is Rich home?"

The man didn't look impressed, with his heavy engineer boots and thick denim shirt, the white undershirt peeking out from beneath his literal and figurative blue collar. He looked like he worked construction, with his forearms on show with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and he had one of those hard faces of a weathered man. Sharp jawline, crooked nose, tired eyes and thick brows slightly darker than his hair.

The blonde, unimpressed, gave her the once over, not liking what he saw. "Maybe, who's asking?"

He was tall and blonde, leaning heavily against the doorway with his arms crossed over a broad chest, not so unlike Kaleb. She didn't blink an eye at his standoffish tone, not even when Stefan scoffed behind her or Nik tensed, her painfully human status rendering her less offended by a man's power play.

"I'm Jay, we're friends of Rich's."

"Yeah, right." He grunted, "Listen, sweetheart, you look a little too young to be hanging with Rich, like _jailbait_ young. So whatever happened, tell your boyfriends or brothers or whatever that there doesn't have to be any trouble."

"Abel- it is Abel, isn't it?" She inquired politely, taking in his suspicious glare. "Anyway, Rich said you might be home. My friends here aren't going to cause any trouble, we just wanted to drop in and see Rich."

"Let them in, Abel." Rich called, in a gruff voice that matched the image Nik had gotten. "I know her. It's alright."

"This is my fucking place, Abeman- don't start bringing your whore and whoremongers to my door."

"Abel and Abeman, that's cute." Jamie remarked.

She glided past him, followed closely by Roscoe and Stefan. Nik, however, carried the weight of a thousand years of superiority, and he didn't take kindly to this Abel's tone.

"Now, now." Nik chided, "Let's not resort to petty name calling. She said we wouldn't be trouble and I'd hate to prove her wrong."

He had relaxed, and he was smiling that smile that came across as friendly to be sure, but the man in front of him knew a threat when he heard one. _Good,_ he thought, _let him play the man of the hour, I'll tear out his heart and present it to Jay over his dead body._

Nik moved, Abel refused to back away but found his shoulder unceremoniously shoved when Nik walked by, shifting his entire body sideway like he'd been hit by a brick wall- "Hey!"

Jay raised an eyebrow at her hybrid friend, an amused smile playing at her lips when his satisfaction with the encounter shone through.

 _Boys,_ she pondered, _it's always a pissing contest in the end with them._

* * *

(AN: No, I haven't quit writing this. Or any of my other fic's, as it goes. I got real tired real fast of people demanding things from me, including updating this.

I worked all summer. I'm a university student, I live alone and I have to get my shit together before I can so much as think of writing- that's just the way it is.

Kol would have been in this chapter, but I decided I'd update this little bit before I did much else. The next chapter, this original chapter, should be up soon- I gotta edit it first. I gotta do a lot of things first. But rest assured it'll be on it's way, I'll go at my own pace.)


	24. Nine, The Boy with the Brown Eyes

Chapter Nine, The Boy with Brown Eyes

My tongue gets tied when I try to speak  
My insides shake like a leaf on a tree  
There's only one cure for this body of mine  
That's to have the girl that I love so fine

All Shook Up, Elvis

* * *

The apartment was old, it was a part of a quasi complex in the works and going under remodelling slowly with the painstakingly slow task of trying to preserve the older aspects of the buildings. Jay had googled the address and researched the area appropriately from there on out. It was a simple task, one she took great joy in performing if only for the mental capacity tactician tricks took up, it gave her something other than forgetting to do, other than basking in the sorrow of a forgetful little girl.

She heard a muffled moan, it had come from the hallway. Nik and Stefan would have been bloodied by now, she supposed, and the indifference that accompanied such a thought was more startling than the violent nature of their task in the first place. Looking around one of the bedrooms, she thought it might have been Abel's by the bareness of it, she wondered as to if there was something innately wrong with her.

Roscoe, patrolling the door, let out a low snuffle.

"'S'okay, Coe," she said, from the middle of the room. There was a four poster bed set and a few furnishings but not much else. Her gaze strayed from the window to the dog, and she smiled weakly. "What a good boy you are, huh?"

She went to leave the room, ruffling the fur of his neck on her way, half of her begging to stay hidden from whatever it was making the noise beyond the hallway. If she saw what it was, or rather _who_ it was, she was scared she'd have to acknowledge her detachment to the situation she'd found herself in- that she had paid contribution too willingly.

Even Stefan, in his ripper-esk state (Jay would look at him and she'd see what was underneath, the shame and the fear that consumed him after being pushed into a binge), felt something (he looked at her, too, and he saw nothing, and he judged her for it).

Turning the corner, she saw scuffled footprints against the darkwood flooring. It was a dark, wet substance, she felt her feet slip a little as she trailed through it, and it didn't take a genius to know it was blood.

Massacre sights had become as commonplace as patterned carpets in Motel rooms, and the few pieces of clothing she had picked up on her travels were dark to hide the stains. Blood somehow got everywhere, she wouldn't even have to witness it for it to get all over her skin or to find discoloured imbrue spotted across her shirts. It was impossible to feel clean, sometimes.

Abel was bleeding out in the hallway, he was passed out cold. He'd survive, maybe. It was one of those things she didn't pay much mind to, anymore, but something of which she could not ignore completely. His blonde hair looked a ruddy red, now.

Seeing might have been believing. Looking at that mop of hair sprawled out on the floor, matted to his head with blood, she believed it well enough. Believed she was at some kind of fault, for landing him there. That they all had their parts to play and she played a little too well.

Sometimes, not feeling anything at all was worse than feeling something. Jay didn't feel bad about it, but she knew she should of, and so she did something she shouldn't of.

A little while after, after some unspeakable deed she wouldn't breath a word to anyone about, she found herself slipping through the hallway and into the main room. It was like a centerpiece to a horrific play, one about murderous vampires and the war they waged on werewolves, a bad novel that one could not put down for fear of missing the real juicy bits.

The hybrid prowled, hunched over as he took slow sure footed steps, figers ghosting along the old mantlepiece as he considered photographs and ornaments. He looked over his shoulder, smiling wide.

If only he knew what she had done, just then. Surely he'd kill her, too.

"There she is!" He cheered, and he hadn't found any worth in performing without an audience. "Now we can really get started- My, my, Richard. You really have come up in the world…"

It was a shoddy two bedroom apartment somewhere in the Indianapolis, easily within walking distance of the six bar's Richard Abeson liked to frequent. There were a few pictures dotted about, not so many of Abel even fewer of Rich, and there were three monkeys on the mantelpiece; see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil. They had no way of knowing the real evil that would invade their house, that it would come that night and wore a blooded white shirt that complimented his golden eyes and the reddish veins that spiderwebbed across his face.

Ruining the two piece settee, looking every bit defeated and trying his best to look anything but, lay Rich whom was sprawled out across the velvet interior. It's tasteful but hinting at tacky shade of maroon was going a deeper, darker stain, it stiffened the fabric and left textured imprints across his bare forearm.

Blood, Jay swore in her head, it was like there was no escape from it. It followed her, like a bad rendition of Macbeth.

"I told you everything…" A low voice argued, and she couldn't look at him anymore than she could the blood.

"That's what I find so _interesting._ You'd betray them, the entire pack?" Nik asked, finding the whole ordeal interesting. He spoke again, voice darker, his back facing her. "Because I hope you're not fool enough to think you could lie to me, Richard."

Rich let some blood trickle from his lip with a scowl, turning his face so that the ambient lighting of the fireplace set it alight and deepened the shadows that loomed across his features. He looked older, the inky blood running down his face was a pitch black, it was easy to imagine that it wasn't there at all.

She went to the mantlepiece herself, eyes sweeping over the pictures and landing on one of him and some girl. His girl, she'd wager.

"He fucked her, didn't he?" She said, and she felt empty looking at it. "The girl in the picture."

She waved around a shoddy frame, a blonde girl and their guy Rich all cosied up and so evidently in love that it was almost horrible to look at. It felt like some sick kind of voyeurism, like Hitchcock's 'Rear Window' but without the social commentary. Something not for her eyes, but in her hands anyway.

Stefan came up beside her to take a look, he had blood on his face, and there was something horribly dark about him- it wasn't him, not really. She knew Nik had taken to calling him the Ripper, the brooding blood junkie that he was.

" _Yes_." Richard bit out in a low growl, staring hard at the girl holding the picture frame in hand.

She spoke some hollow words, then. It was all playing a part, and it had gotten to her scene already, it was her cue. "I get it, really, I do. Revenge is the sweetest thing, isn't it just? Damn beautiful thing, best feeling in the world."

Nik grinned. "I couldn't agree more, love."

She knew all the exits, she knew the streets and the quickest routes if something went down. It wasn't from fear, it was common sense. Nik and Stefan were of a higher breed, but she was human above all else and werewolves were stronger, grown men stronger still. That was how she dove from alleyways and bars and knew approximately where Richard was treading at all times, and as she entered the home she took special measure to observe the rooms and hallways she had access to.

Survival, hadn't it always come down to that? Survival of the fittest- Jay was the fittest of them all. Just ask Abel- and hadn't Nik shoved every passing comment down his throat?

Richard Abeson had sold out his ex-best friend and his ex-girl, of whom was currently cosied up with one another in some backwoods home in a faraway place. It started with a betrayal.

And Jay… she'd betrayed Nik. Just a little.

She'd called an ambulance. Maybe she didn't want to play any part of it after all. And she'd written a note, stowing it away in Abel's pocket.

When they finally made their exit, with both occupants long gone cold and unresponsive, she'd looked at Stefan, and she wondered if he knew.

In the car they spotted an ambulance headed towards the address.

"Huh," she said, "the neighbours must've heard."

Nik nodded, uncaring. He wore a horrible, sharp smile. It was decisively cruel, the high from blood lust and new information, feeling utterly sated and triumphant.

She borrowed her face into Roscoe's neck with a shuddering yawn, peeking up from the tri-coloured fur only to find Stefan's eyes once more. It was then that she knew for certain.

 _He knows._

* * *

Tyler thought about Jamie. He didn't, but sometimes he couldn't help it.

Sometimes he woke up at dawn, sweating and panting, thinking he was at the playing field. The little kids that they were, stuck like always, suspended in time, were still there. They'd left a part of themselves on the playing field that night, nothing had ever been the same. It all went to the pale blue light and the shards of grass and glass in their eyes. Went with the currents, swept away from them as the sun finally came up to bare witness, their only witness.

He saw that same sun when the light hit Caroline's hair. Blue light in her blue eyes, what they found in pale skin and a cold body in the bedsheets.

Why were girls always freezing? Surely Jamie hadn't been so cold all the time, she loved the winter and the snow, did she ever get cold?

Tyler thought that maybe she was cold now. Lost in the water, like those kids they left behind that day- he wasn't particularly religious, but he thought that maybe they'd left their souls on the playing field. They played baseball and kicked soccer balls in the dark, rode ratty bicycle's with wonky wheels teetering on edge, falling, falling off. On the wagon and back off it again.

Weed didn't taste the same since she was gone, he didn't buy it much, but when he did he hid it and inhaled it in the old clubhouse they'd built. The kids in that clubhouse were long dead, he knew, they'd died the first time they'd lit their rolled ends of a blunt and the smoke and the flint sparked and they were no more. The ashes rised to the rooftops like smoke.

His old man, he hadn't thought about him for a while now. Tried not to, he felt cold about it, same way Jamie was cold in the river.

It had been a little over a year, she'd be bloated and water logged now. Maybe some hunter would end up pissing on her bones if she ever came ashore, or maybe she was tied to the bottom the same way the seatbelt was supposed to keep her in place.

The unclipped seat belt, man, that haunted him. How in the hell did the seat belt come undone?

Her Mom and Dad were in the front seat, they'd found Elena alive and well. But Jamie… Of course, he didn't say a word about it. The seat belt or the playing field. One he'd sworn not to and two it was public information- Jamie Gilbert, lost.

Tyler Lockwood was an angry boy, he was still an angry boy. Sometimes the anger left him.

Caroline kept him sweet, he kept her warm. He didn't think it was love, he didn't know what love was, he thought he loved Jamie, though. Always Jamie.

They'd learnt how to tie their shoelaces together, how to kick a ball and be the best. He sat on those porch steps and he understood, he didn't know how but he did. He loved her and she was gone, he loved her until she was no more and evermore. Thought about her when he saw the stars and the sun and the colour blue and water. Thought about her anyway just because he could.

Maybe if he went back to that playing field he could find something- her. No. The people they were, the kids they had been. Jamie was dead. He'd find no comfort revisiting things better left unturned.

The playing field at dawn.

He woke up again, another day another thought. It was dawn, he didn't have to look out of his window to know. The light was blue, Caroline was beneath his bed sheets, and Jamie was dead.

Despite it all, he would have given anything to be the angry boy on the playing field at dawn.

* * *

"You could have found your family, could have gone home and lived a normal life." Stefan said critically, and she didn't like the weight of his words or the sternness of his face.

She had her back to him, shoving the key into the lock unceremoniously. For a minute she let her face screw up, making sure to keep her shoulders relaxed and her spine at a comfortable angle, letting herself fall into a subtle indifference once more as her features smoothed out to blank stone.

Nik had gone to take another call. He'd be back soon, to haul Stefan someplace for a drink of any kind, to give Jay the marching orders to say bye to that boy of her's.

"Don't," she warned him, pushing the door to her motel apartment open with a creak. "I'm not feeling up to a lecture, don't start debating moral politics to me. I don't care."

"I don't have morals, Klaus took them from me. He took everything."

There it was, she surmised, the anger beneath the surface. The storm brewing in a teacup.

"Don't act like you're some unfeeling _thing,_ Stefan," Jay blew the hair from her harrowed cheeks. "I've seen you. What about that one kid- what was his name again? R _ight,_ I've got it now-" she snapped her fingers, mocking an epiphany moment with gentle cruelty- " _Dorian._ That _was_ his name, right? You know… that kid you compelled?"

Stefan watched her, angrily, bitterly. This human, a fraction of his age, with all the composure and emotional checks of a person far beyond her years. It was frustrating to watch her, there wasn't a sign pointing in any which direction, nothing to tip him off as to what her game was.

Laughing, she said "What was the line you spieled off again? Ah, I know. _It was an accident, you smelled the smoke and you went outside-_ and aren't all house fires accidents? Except, I seem to remember a certain vampire lighting the match…"

"Shut up." He demanded quite suddenly, voice ripping from his throat forcefully.

Jay grinned, holding her hands up in surrender, always mocking. "Hey, I ain't judging. Nik's none the wiser, maybe, but you can't bullshit a bullshitter, Saint Stefan."

He wanted to hurt her, too. He tried not to, to not want to hurt some teenage girl with nothing or no one, but it was hard, sometimes. Especially when she spoke like that, especially when she was right.

"Except there's nothing saintly about what you did." Turning, she faced him, her grin gone. "So he thinks his folks died in a house fire, at least he doesn't have to live with the image of their body parts detached and reattached like a bad parody of Frankenstein. Live with it. Learn to live with it."

"You saved two people tonight. I know it was you who called the ambulance." He settled for saying, ignoring what she'd said for fear of what he'd do.

She shrugged, utterly careless. "Good luck proving it."

Pulling out her sketchbook, she draped herself over the bed, putting pen to paper.

"Do I scare you, Stefan?" Jay asked, frowning, "Because I'm not afraid of you or the things you do?"

"How do you not think it's wrong?" He demanded all of a sudden, "What I do is wrong, Jay, what we are is wrong, and you... You just don't care, do you?"

Jay frowned, bristling at his tortured soul act and the whiny voice. "Then change, or accept the fact that you are what you are and the things you do in order to survive."

"I don't need to kill to survive." He shot back.

"I wasn't referring to your feeding habits." Jamie told him, "I was referring to your lackey status. Nik would kill you, he just doesn't particularly want to for his own reasons."

"Do you know what those reasons are?"

"I may come across like I know everything, Stefan, but I'm not a mind reader."

She knew more than she let on, they both knew it, too.

Drawings of mantle pieces and fireplaces and a trio of monkeys filled the page, of a girl standing in the arched hallway with a broken figure on the floor.

"Why do you hate him so much anyway, just what is it that he's taken from you?" She said.

He turned away, finally deciding to keep his silence.

Nik returned a good twenty minutes after the fact, and with him came the harboured doubts of Jay's return to their little adventure. She had been spending time with a boy her own age, and who's to say she wouldn't prefer it to werewolf hunting and the mindless slaughter of her own kind?

Stefan might have pointed as much out when she left, but he wasn't dumb enough to try it that night. A little piece of him supposed Nik might kill him for it, but a bigger part of him repeated exactly what Jay had said that night.

* * *

They kissed, not for the first time. Stumbling, fumbling clumsily with articles of clothing and gripping at each other's body, hands roaming skin. It wasn't cool and surefooted, there weren't sparks or fireworks, just searing skin and bruising lips. Jay liked that it wasn't perfect, that they had found a middleground of ease and awkwardness, that it wasn't some melodrama of declarations and gooey eyed looks.

He told her that she was pretty, sure, but it wasn't a grand poem about beauty and nature like the great romantics.

She liked the way he looked at her, and she told him he was pretty, too, and that he had such very blue eyes. It wasn't a love confession, just plain truths that made him smile- and she liked his smile, too.

Tangled in bedsheets, they both puffed at cigarettes- the kind you could taste on a lover's tongue and their teeth as they clashed and bit and moaned.

Nik had gotten used to her disappearing, as begrudging as he could be. Jay took the time, then, in this boy's bed, to wonder as to what Niklaus Mikaelson was to her.

A companion. Freedom. Survival.

He was probably sitting in his room, painting to pass the time. Sometimes sleep was bereft of him, the same as her, and other times he liked to ponder and his foul mood permeated through the car. Mostly he was happy. She supposed he was keeping Roscoe company. It might have scared her, these fanciful thoughts she spared a monster at the end of the bed, but it didn't.

Stefan had his own secrets.

One's that she found harder to ignore each and every passing day. It had been a long summer, by all means. And it wasn't over yet.

That summer she had seen terrible things, atrocious things. Abel's bleeding form invaded her mind, his crumpled body kicked by the fireplace on their exit, and Richard's heavyset eyes fluttering to a close.

Unbeknownst to Nik, she had called an ambulance. Unbeknownst to anyone, she had slipped a piece of paper into Richard's jacket.

That gave her some semblance of peace. The same way Stefan found peace in compelling his victim's families and piecing body parts together like puzzles.

Eventually, sleep found her. It was one tinged with the damp fear of seeing something else, something _Other._ But she slept all the same, she was only human after all.

It was that marble place, again. Pillars and cold stone reaching tall well above her head, long corridors and steeples and stoned structures she sat on for what seemed like days.

A boy was sitting next to her, handsome in a waist jacket and white shirt, hair pleasantly styled and brown eyes blazing. It was the whitest shirt she had ever seen, the boy with the brown eyes grinned at her.

"What's wrong, darling?"

In her dreams she was Jaime again, in her dreams she wore her Uncle Billy's shirt and her navy blue yankee's cap.

"I won't remember this when I wake up, I'll just know I want to sleep again."

He wanted to tell her to live, to enjoy her life, but he wanted her to fall back asleep again too, from the moment she woke in fact. And he was too selfish to tell her otherwise, it would be a lie to speak of the living. So he didn't say any of it, but his grip became tighter, and he preened as she leaned in closer. He missed human contact.

"You'll sleep again," he told her, "and when you do my handsome face will be here to greet you."

She laughed, he wore a roguish grin. They looked a pretty pair, surely. Her cropped curls sticking up every which way and his neatly styled hair mussed just a little.

"Well, with an offer like that how am I not supposed to welcome sleep?"

Chuckling, he rest his waistcoat across her shoulders despite the lack of temperature in the room. "Do try to resist my charm, Darling, not that I think it'll do you any good."

Her demure eyes found his, both of them locked in a fond gaze that spoke of loneliness. Sadly, she said; "There are others, aren't there? I dream of them, too, sometimes."

He nodded, "perhaps, but I know I'm your favourite."

"I won't even remember your name…" _I can hardly remember my own,_ she wanted to say.

"Pity." He murmured, "If I could I'd let you remember it, I wouldn't let you ever forget."

"I like it here, with you. When I'm awake if feels like my brains burning up, I can't remember anything," she complained. "Doesn't it ever get lonely here, Kol?"

Kol shrugged. "I always have your visits to look forward to, don't I?"

* * *

 _ **(AN: So… Kol. I promised, didn't I?**_

 _ **I don't like this chapter. I might change it later.)**_


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